AIRPORT TYPOLOGY FOR LCC POLICY CHANGES: A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This paper proposes a new airport typology that might arise from the expansion of airports with dominant low cost carrier traffic. In the first part of the paper, the typologies and different airport categorizations are reviewed with examples of current taxonomies used by principal international organizations. However, none of the current airport taxonomies takes into account low cost (LCC) carriers and cannot be used to create an airport market strategy with LCC operation. The paper highlights the characteristic of LCC features, the differences between the LCC airlines, and the characteristics of secondary – low cost airports. Finally, the paper proposes a new taxonomy of airports with low cost operations based on the airport data analysis and expert panel elucidation. For identification of airports with a high share of low cost carriers, Eurocontrol 2013 data on airline types and movements were used. The novel classification of low cost airports enables management to design marketing strategies to respond to LCC dominance and its implications. The main contribution of this research is to provide a novel classification for low cost airports which is relatively new phenomenon comparing with the problems of full service carriers dominance at large airports.