The biggest ever gathering of aviation professionals covering the European market will descend on Marseille this weekend for the 9th Routes Europe event.

 

A record attendance of over 1,100 is expected from airlines, airports and tourism authorities to discuss new air services to, from and within the entire European region – still the most important for duty free and travel retail airport sales, which rely chiefly on strong air connections to generate customers.

 

Routes Europe, which takes place on 6-8 April, is being hosted by Marseille-Provence Airport, a gateway to the South of France. Over 114 airlines (more than at any previous show) will be present, 340 airports and 30 tourism authorities.

 

Among the network carriers will be Air France, British Airways, Iberia, Lufthansa and Alitalia, as well as all major European low-cost airlines. In addition, numerous non-European airlines will be attending to discuss air services to and from Europe, including American Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Turkish Airlines, S7 Airlines and WestJet.

 

STILL THE TOP REGION FOR AIRPORT SALES

In the first half of 2013, DF&TR airport sales in Europe were just over $6.5bn – more than in any other region worldwide including Asia – with a share of 39.1% of the global market, according to Generation Research.

 

Katie Bland, Director Routes at UBM Live comments: “Europe is one of the largest and most advanced aviation markets in the world. You might see more impressive growth rates elsewhere, but the European Union is the world’s largest and probably most interconnected economy, and the region boasts over 500m affluent consumers. That explains the strong interests and high attendance this year.”

 

Marseille-Provence Airport itself is an example of acting as an economic vector for DF&TR, tourism and business development. In the space of 10 years, passenger traffic at the airport has increased by +54%, constituting the strongest growth in volume among French airports (excluding Parisian airports) with an additional three million passengers.

 

Marseille also has the largest network of long-haul flights in France after Paris to destinations including New York, Reunion Island, Mayotte, Madagascar, Dakar, Punta Cana, Montreal and Toronto.