Easter holidays and summer 2022 are now the focus. Demand for Easter holidays far exceeds last year’s and therefore provides a great opportunity to yield.

Summer 2022 is showing very strong early demand – and as we all know, fleet will be limited so demand will outweigh capacity once again. Protect your summer by keeping your rates high and avoiding selling too cheaply too soon. Air demand into Spain is very strong, but we are still far away from the main booking period. Rates will only go up – as you saw last year.

With limited fleet and high demand, it will be critical to manage your fleet and channels accordingly. Make sure your fleet is at the right place and that you restrict booking coming from your less-contributing and less-profitable channels.

Flight Demand summary

• Last minute demand remains strong as we have seen in the past year. The lead time or February and March will continue to be very short.
• Easter holidays are very strong as well, with travellers coming from the UK mainly. Make sure your source market pricing (if any) is on point and that you keep your prices high.

Fig. 1

Summer demand

• Demand for summer is looking very strong – especially in leisure driven locations like Ibiza, Malaga or Palma. Demand is more than 3x what it was at the same time in 2021.
• As fleet procurement will still be a problem, demand is likely to exceed capacity. Our advice: Keep your rates at the highest and don’t sell too cheap.
• Check your source markets by location. For instance, Mallorca’s main markets as per usual are UK and Germany, so make sure that your channels are priced right and/or you have sufficient restrictions in place to avoid selling too cheap.

Fig. 2

Forward Market Pricing Summary

• We can clearly see the impact of the strong Easter holiday demand here with rates lifting. Don’t be afraid to push your rates even higher as there’s still a lot of demand to come. Make sure your channels are on point and you are not selling too cheap. Avoid spillage and spoilage on the Easter peak by applying min/max LOR restriction, and/or have a LOR strategy to flatten the peak. And finally, check your channels and make sure you restrict the less-contributing ones.
• Economy vehicle pricing for summer is similar or lower than current Easter rates in most locations, while air demand is early and already 3x higher than last year. Don’t be afraid to lift your rates and control your channels early!

Fig. 3

Canary Islands focus

• In both Tenerife and Lanzarote air demand is strong for July and August (3x higher), however the rate calibration does not show this. Rates are much lower than March and April. Our recommendation is to re-calibrate the rates to at least the same level as Easter.

Fig. 4

7-Day Price Change summary

• Strong focus on the next 30 days as well as the Easter holidays, where most of the price changes occurred in the last seven days. Rates have mostly come down for the next 30 days, before going up for Easter. While it is low season in February air demand is very strong, especially in Tenerife, Madrid and Barcelona. Rates are trending up in those three locations (except in Barcelona).

• One anomaly is that rates have generally gone lower for July and August, which is not in line with the strong air demand. The most significant changes happened in Malaga.

Fig. 5

February focus

• In Barcelona, rates are trending down for the Economy car for the immediate pick ups (the next two weeks). This is likely due to the larger fleet in big locations like Barcelona. Our advice: demand is unlikely to exceed supply, but air demand is trending up nonetheless – slightly lift your prices and find your sweet spot.

• In Tenerife, however, rates are looking up for the rest of February. Keep yielding as there is demand.

Fig. 6