机票超售,即售出的機票多於飛機客艙座位的數量，已經作為“國際慣例“被航空公司廣泛採用。但是这种做法是有争议的，因為其容易導致航班超售，使得旅客被拒登機而滯留，影響航空公司的聲譽。在這篇論文中，我們使用逆向拍賣的機制尋找自願放棄登機資格的旅客以收回部份已預售的低端機票來滿足高端旅客的需求，并同時根據拍賣實現的結果來賠償被拒絶登機旅客。具體地說，我們建立一個二期的機票銷售模型，並且假定低端與高端旅客分別在第一第二個銷售期到來，而航空公司通過決定其在兩個銷售期的銷售策略，使得其利潤最大化。在模型中，航空公司可利用逆向拍賣的方法，要求低端旅客在購買機票的時候，提交一個其在因為航班超售時，自願放棄座位的赔偿要求。當航班超售時，航空公司可根據低端旅客的競投信息，從中挑選出價最低的旅客，通過滿足他們的賠償要求，收回他們的機票以滿足高端旅客的需求。我们发现我们的机制在大多数情况下，可以提高航空公司的利润，改善航班的登機效率，同时，也能滿足部份低端旅客通過改變計劃行程獲取賠償的需求。我們也會比較逆向拍賣機制與其他現有機制，例如固定價格補償機制。此外，我們也會就逆向拍賣機票銷售模型中的定價问题进行研究。 / With increasing applications of revenue management, airline companies often oversell their tickets. This practice is controversial because some passengers would not be able to board when the number of show-up customers exceeds the available seats. And this might make the affected customers upset and thus affect the future revenue of the airline. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism - a call-back auction, in which the passengers are asked to submit a bid to indicate the compensation they would like to receive for giving up their seats and changing their original flight schedule. This could provide the airline with information to select passengers with the lowest compensation requirements and also reduce the negative impact on customer relationship. We develop a model with booking limit decision and examine the impact of this call-back auction mechanism on the airline's profitability and compare it with other existing mechanisms such as fixed-price compensation. We find that our mechanism can lead to higher profit for the airlines in most cases. In this study, pricing issues are also examined. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Zhong, Zhiheng. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-76). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Table of Contents --- p.vii / Chapter 0 --- Notation / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.7 / Chapter 3 --- Call-back Auction --- p.13 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Concept --- p.13 / Chapter 3.2 --- Implementation --- p.14 / Chapter 4 --- A Two-Period Model with Call-back Auction --- p.19 / Chapter 4.1 --- Uniform Price Call-back Auction --- p.21 / Chapter 4.2 --- Numerical Examples --- p.27 / Chapter 4.3 --- First-price Call-back Auction --- p.35 / Chapter 4.4 --- Revenue Comparison --- p.39 / Chapter 4.5 --- Call-back Auction with Reserve Compensation --- p.41 / Chapter 4.6 --- Alternative Information Structure --- p.50 / Chapter 5 --- Endogenous High-fare Price --- p.59 / Chapter 5.1 --- Additive Demand Function --- p.60 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.68 / Bibliography --- p.72

The purpose of this study is to investigate the correlation of U.S. domestic air travelers and patterns of air travel purchase within the U.S. air travel industry. Influences on the patterns of air travel purchase involved 1) demographic characteristics of travelers 2) benefits to the customer 3) customer attitude toward service providers' (defined as airlines, web-based travel agents, and traditional travel agents and 4) information sources used to select and book a flight for business and leisure trips.