Journal of Air Transport Management最新文献

Environmental concerns attract growing attention in aviation. Airlines and other aviation stakeholders are increasingly committed to more environmentally friendly operations. This paper aims to expand the understanding of the airlines' environmental attitudes and map best practices in the sector. To achieve this goal, the authors followed a two-stage analysis. Initially, a number of interviews were conducted with a focus group of key respondents from six Greek airlines, to draw the general picture of their environmental awareness. In the second stage, the authors studied the market's dominant airlines as a case to gain a deeper understanding of how an Environmental Management System (EMS) is deployed in practice and to allow for best practices to emerge. The research findings highlight the need for EMSs to become an integral part of airlines' operational strategy and the imperative for an articulate regulatory framework able to enhance the airlines' eco-path through concrete guidelines and knowledge exchange.

Uneven utilization of airport clusters is a widespread problem, yet China is still planning to build more airports. Intermodal Passenger Transport Service (IPTS), the most typical of which is the Air-Rail Integration Service (ARIS), is one new way to solve this problem. Although some service products have been derived, intermodal travel services are still in their infancy due to problems such as long transfer time and inconvenient connectivity arising from the fact that those products fail to take into account the complexity of transfers between multiple hubs, resulting in a low penetration rate of intermodal services. Therefore, this study constructs a universal Hybrid Choice Model (HCM) framework that includes mode choice and city choice based on an online stated preference (SP) survey about multi-hub intermodal transportation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, and introduces travelers' concerns about travel security, comfort, convenience and reliability as attitudinal variables, which expands the research on IPTS. Then the willingness to pay (WTP) for travel service is evaluated to demonstrate intermodal travelers' preference for shorter transfer time, transferring in the metropolis, more reserve time for air than rail, and the impact mechanisms of luggage through-handling service and mutual recognition mechanism of security checks. Last but not least, through scenario testing, we find that the excessive concern for security and comfort among high-educated and high-income passengers with a low tolerance for transfer time will reduce the market share of air-rail. These findings can assist relevant departments and businesses in making more humane plans for intermodal travel and infrastructure construction.

As the global process of digitalization accelerates and breakthroughs in internet technology emerge, governments worldwide are advocating for data-driven decision-making, aiming to enhance public service efficiency and stimulate economic growth. Against this backdrop, this study focuses on utilizing search engine data (SED) to improve air passenger demand forecasting, responding to national policies aimed at enhancing data analysis capabilities and promoting the development of intelligent transportation systems; however, the existing research is confined to the exploration of the temporal dependency between SED and air passenger demand variables with ignoring the spatial dependency. In order to eliminate this blind spot and catch from various parts of tourist attention, this study proposes a novel SED-driven hybrid forecasting architecture inspired by the theory of spatial effect between adjacent tourist destinations. The architecture includes three main steps: (1) construction of spatial-temporal SED variables, based on two-stage data preprocessing method; (2) variable decomposition and reconstruction, based on TVF-EMD algorithm; (3) prediction of different components of air passenger demand, employed ARIMA model and IHGS-KELM based multi-model fusion strategy respectively, where the IHGS algorithm integrates the circle chaos initialization strategy and the nonlinear convergence factor strategy. To confirm the practical applicability of this hybrid architecture, five comparative experiments based on the actual dataset are designed. The principal results are concluded as follows: (1) spatial-temporal SED is conducive to a fairly accurate air passenger demand forecasting; (2) the multi-model fusion strategy can integrate the fortes of various types of prediction models to obtain better prediction accuracy; (3) the adaptive ensemble method based on IHGS-KELM can contribute to the upgradation of prediction performance of air passenger demand.

The rise of e-commerce, fueled by digitalization and shifting in consumer demand, has revolutionized air cargo. While all e-commerce stakeholders are engaged in fierce competition to increase their market share, airports as integral elements of the air cargo supply chain could not be apathetic to this competition. This study examines the economic implication of e-commerce on high cargo volume airports, focusing on cost savings and productivity growth. Utilizing the Farrell measure of input-oriented technical efficiency, we estimate scope economies for the U.S. airports between 2009 and 2019. The results reveal higher scope economies for high cargo volume airports, indicating greater cost savings resulting from e-commerce activities. In addition, the Malmquist index is employed to assess productivity growth. The index is decomposed into technical change, efficiency change, and scale change. The findings show a 3.3% overall productivity growth in the U.S. airport industry, primarily driven by technical change. Besides, high cargo volume airports exhibit higher productivity growth compared to low cargo volume airports, with 4.1% and 2.9% growth rates, respectively. The gap between high cargo volume and low cargo volume airports widened in 2017, aligning with the pre-pandemic peak in e-commerce activity. Furthermore, high cargo volume airports experience higher efficiency gains and technical advancements. While efficiency gains are attributed to improved performance and increased capacity utilization, the technical advancements can be explained by the digitalization and customized operations associated with e-commerce. Overall, the results highlight the significant contribution of e-commerce to cost savings and productivity growth in high-cargo volume airports.

This paper explores the link between air transport safety and profitability. Traditionally, the empirical literature has used Poisson regression models to estimate the expected number of accidents given the profitability of the airline. However, there are two major deficiencies in this analysis related to the statistical properties of the data. First, the equi-dispersion assumed in Poisson models hardly holds in the airline data. Second, accidents are rare cases, so the data has an excess of zeros. In this paper, we propose the use of a zero-inflated negative binomial model to deal with these shortcomings. Our results show several interesting facts. On the one hand, they show that airlines with higher levels of profitability are less likely to have an accident. On the other hand, when an accident occurs, there is a higher expected number of accidents in airlines with higher profitability. Finally, the severity of an accident has an inverse relationship with profitability.

Technological advances have paved the way for urban air mobility (UAM) as a new mode of transportation, providing solutions for both inner-city and regional transportation. Novel vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles promise to be less noisy and safer than existing helicopters, thus allowing for an integration of UAM into current mobility systems. However, as this market is non-existent today, companies engaged in this field face several uncertainties. Strategic decision factors supporting VTOL manufacturers to successfully commercialize their innovation are still mainly unassessed. Looking into the innovation strategy literature we find little guidance on how high-technology companies can profit from innovation in so far non-existent markets. We therefore conduct expert interviews that allow us to identify eight decision factors that VTOL manufacturers are expected to take into account when setting up their commercial strategy. Building on the findings from these interviews we suggest to enhance the Profiting from Innovation (PFI) framework by a peripheric sphere that incorporates the impact of external factors on commercial success. This approach on the one hand, allows to provide insights into strategic management approaches of VTOL manufacturers, while on the other hand, this research adds to the scientific literature on strategic decision factors in non-existent markets.

Non-aeronautical revenues are associated with commercial activities at the airport, in which the fundamental factor in managing these revenues is the customers’ experience. This study numerically analyzed the influence of passenger satisfaction and waiting time on consumption made in the commercial facilities of the Airport Passenger Terminal, operating predominantly with domestic flights. This research was made through a structured questionnaire and the passengers in the airport to support the definition of the behavior of the Fuzzy Inference System. The results show that the greater the passenger satisfaction and waiting time, the greater the chances of significantly shopping. Furthermore, this study presents fuzzy modeling of a rule-based computational intelligence system capable of forecasting non-aeronautical revenues referring to shopping and dining experience, with significant contributions to the literature and airport management.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to the airline industry, necessitating a focus on maintaining high efficiency for profitability. This study assesses the efficiency of 26 international airlines from 2019 to 2022 using a dynamic network data envelopment analysis (DNDEA) methodology. The model accounts for the dynamic effect between two consecutive periods and incorporates an internal structure to evaluate airline performance across multiple dimensions. It enables the assessment of overall, period-specific, and stage-specific efficiencies. The findings reveal that while overall efficiency is moderately high on average, no airline achieved full efficiency during the pandemic. Efficiency decreased notably from 2019 to 2020, with a partial recovery but not a return to pre-pandemic levels by 2022. Operational performance remains satisfactory and stable, while service and financial performance exhibit lower efficiency, especially among low-cost airlines compared to full-service counterparts. Additionally, the study explores airlines' environmental impact by considering greenhouse gas emissions. Comparative analysis with a dynamic DEA model without internal structure highlights theoretical contributions, and the study offers managerial insights for airline leaders and policymakers.

The aviation operator's role and duties undergo a dramatic change from direct engagement to information management and surveillance in today's advanced aviation environment. In this modern and highly automated working environment, operators must handle various information, data, and transmission during operations, particularly while making decisions in specific situations. The total load system of operators (information, communication, mental, task, and workload) has been fundamentally reshaped in response to these dynamic changes. The highly automated system is linked to unbalanced operator loads, unanticipated losses in situation awareness, inappropriate decision-making quality, and higher stress levels. This research employs the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a foundational framework, integrating the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) on the AHP model to address uncertainties and applying the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) for ranking the aviation operators' total loads. online Survey distributed among 63 experts across four aviation operator groups: less experienced pilots, expert pilots, less experienced Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs), and experienced ATCOs. serves to evaluate the pivotal characteristics of the operators' total loads model. The results highlighted the communication load's effect on the aviation operators specifically the level of the language as well the workload specifically both practicing referring to the experience and skills.

The global airline industry represents fertile ground for research due to its susceptibility to extraneous demand shocks such as fuel price hikes, terrorist attacks, and global pandemics coupled with high leverage and high reliance on leasing. Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) 842 Leases and International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 16 Leases became effective January 1st, 2019 for publicly-traded firms in the U.S. and overseas, requiring capitalization of the majority of leased assets. This study was motivated by how the acts may have affected reported airline liquidity, leverage, profitability and stock price, and if any evidence existed of lease restructure attempts in order to avoid capitalization; which may provide initial impacts. Using a sample of publicly-traded airlines incorporated in the U.S. and Europe, the current study used firm year-level filings from 2017 to 2019 to determine if passage of the acts were associated with changes in liquidity, leverage, profitability and stock price. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent samples t-test parametric statistical testing was employed to determine any statistically significant change in the means of selected ratios operationalizing liquidity, leverage, profitability and firm valuation. The results indicated no significance for any of the variables operationalizing the latent constructs providing evidence contrary to previous predictions, and a significant difference between the two regions, worthy of further study. These findings are significant due to the vast financial reporting implications associated with these acts and their potential to skew financial ratios, juxtaposed against the ever-present threat of extraneous demand shocks which permeate this industry. The research also suggests management may have attempted lease restructures to circumvent the capitalization requirements of the act and warrants further research to investigate the generalizability of these findings to other industries.