Le développement de puissantes compagnies aériennes bénéficiant d’un soutien évident d’acteurs politiques qui ont (re)lancé leurs activités vient poser d’importants défis pour le secteur aérien international. De fait, de nombreuses entités politiques perçoivent le transport aérien comme un outil indispensable afin de promouvoir leurs intérêts et s’imposer davantage sur la scène internationale. Les cas des émirats de Dubaï, d’Abu Dhabi et du Qatar, ainsi que de la Turquie illustrent pleinement la façon dont des acteurs politiques utilisent le développement d’une compagnie aérienne localement basée en fonction d’objectifs qui leur sont propres. La croissance inédite d’Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways et Turkish Airlines vient toutefois bouleverser l’évolution de la connectivité aérienne mondiale, tandis que les nombreux acteurs de l’aérien peinent à s’accorder sur la mise en œuvre d’un cadre de portée internationale censé garantir l’existence d’une « concurrence loyale » entre les transporteurs, sur fond d’intérêts divergents. Le contrôle de la connectivité constitue en effet un instrument de soft power qui vient renforcer la position des acteurs qui l’utilisent, tout en créant des liens de/d’(inter)dépendance croissants. Les autorités politiques adoptent toutefois des approches différenciées afin de développer leur soft power, tandis que l’Union européenne s’avère être, pour l’heure, en retrait d’une telle dynamique. / The growth of strong airlines benefiting from a large support of political stakeholders who have (re)launched their activities is leading to important challenges for the international air transport sector. Numerous political entities perceive aviation as an essential tool to promote their interests and to gain more international recognition. The cases of the emirates of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, but also Turkey are fully showing how political stakeholders use the development of a locally based airline according to their own goals. The large growth of Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines is disrupting the air connectivity evolution at a worldwide scale, while numerous aviation stakeholders do not reach to agree on an international framework aiming to safeguard a “fair competition” between air carriers, in a context of differing interests. Thus, the control of air connectivity forms a soft power instrument strengthening the position of stakeholders who are using it while creating in the meantime growing (inter)dependence links. Political authorities adopt however differentiated approaches in order to expand their soft power, whereas the European Union is, for now, staying away of such a dynamic.

To counter the problem of the volatility of jet fuel prices within the United States, many financial managers of U.S. airlines use hedging as a financial tool to mitigate the risk of exposure to market price volatility. However, their efforts often lead to financial distress for their airlines. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to explore U.S. airline managers' use of financial hedging to reduce the risk of exposure from the volatility of jet fuel prices. The conceptual framework was Simkowitz's theory of modern finance, which concerns debt policy, dividend policy, and investment policy as they relate to financial decision making by upper management. The research questions addressed when, why, and how U.S. airline financial managers would consider the use of hedging as a financial tool to mitigate the risk in the purchase of jet fuel at times of lower jet fuel prices. Interviews with a purposive sample of 20 U.S. airline financial managers provided data for analysis and theory development of jet fuel hedging utilization in the U.S. airline industry. Data analysis using the constant comparative method enabled the development of a theory of jet fuel hedging utilization. Participants reported using over-the-counter derivatives purchasing strategies as a form of hedging to protect their airlines against spikes in jet fuel prices on the open market. Using study findings, managers may be able to reduce jet fuel operating costs in the U.S. airline industry. Implications for positive social change include potentially higher profits and more jobs as well as lower consumer prices.

Post deregulation, many U.S. airlines created hubs with banked schedules, however, in the past decade these same airlines began to experiment with depeaking their schedules to reduce costs and improve operational performance. To date there has been little research that has investigated revenue and operational shifts associated with depeaked schedules; yet understanding the trade-offs among revenue, costs, and operational performance at a network level is critical before airlines will consider future depeaking and related congestion-management strategies. This study develops data cleaning and analysis methodologies based on publicly available data that are used to quantify airport-level and network-level revenue and operational changes associated with schedule depeaking. These methodologies are applied to six case studies of airline depeaking over the past decade. Results show that depeaking is associated with revenue per available seat mile (RASM) increasing slower than the rest of the network and the industry as a whole. Depeaking is associated with improved operations for both the depeaking airlines and competitors. Airports benefit from increases in non-aeronautical sales associated with connecting passengers spending more time in the terminal. The underlying reasons driving airlines' scheduling decisions during depeaking vary greatly by case. Results from the study provide insights for airlines that are considering depeaking and the airports which are affected. The results suggest that losses in RASM and no improvement in operations could potentially lead an airline to repeak, and that RASM is prone to fall when a strong competitive threat exists.

After the complete liberalization of the airline industry during the 1990s the industry has faced a rapid growth in passenger numbers. This has mainly been caused by the emergence of so-called Low Cost Carrier (LCC) that offer a simplified product (i.e. point-to-point flights without any frills) at a lower cost than traditional Network Carriers. Furthermore LCC also introduced a less differentiated pricing structure (Restriction Free Pricing) which forced competing network carriers to reduce the degree of price discrimination which they were able to practice until then in order to defend their market shares. This has led to a decrease of average yields, which resulted in difficulties for (smaller) Network Carriers to cover their fixed costs, related to the operation of a hub & spoke network. In this environment network airlines are looking for new revenue sources as well as further sources of cost reduction. This development has amplified the consolidation trend of the airline industry and led to the emergence of several multi-hub networks (e.g. Lufthansa runs hub-operation in Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Vienna). One way to leverage the fact that multi-hub networks allow several routings for one origin-destination city pair would be the introduction of flexible tickets, where the actual routing of the passenger is not defined at the moment of purchase but only a certain time prior to departure. This allows airlines to raise the load factor on their network by increasing the degree of overbooking which they currently practice by pooling the risk that more passengers arrive than there is capacity among several flights. Furthermore these tickets might allow network carriers to compete in the low-cost-airline segment without having to further reduce the price level of their regular product (with specified routing). The present dissertation examined possible designs of such a ticket and their impact on the acceptance by passengers by means of a choice based conjoint study among 356 travelers. The findings suggest that while 77.5% of leisure travelers are willing to accept flexible time-range tickets in their relevant set, only 56% of business travelers are considering using this kind of ticket. More particular the results also showed that business travelers are not willing to compromise on travel duration and departure times, and are subsequently willing to pay a premium for specified tickets. A market share simulation showed that depending on the selected product layout flexible time-range tickets are able to gain up to 60% market share when offered at a discount of up to 33% relative to traditional tickets. When it comes to the actual layout, the largest lever to increase the acceptance is to exclude connection flights from the potential set of flights. The results contribute to the young research area on flexible products by assessing the disutility which is experienced by customers with regard to particular product characteristics of flexible products. Furthermore the results aim at providing airline managers with a comprehensive overview of the possibilities which flexible time-range tickets bring along when it comes to increasing the load factor and thereby the revenues in a multi-hub network. (author's abstract)

[pt] Esse estudo investiga em que medida o desenvolvimento e introdução de novas aeronaves moldam a estrutura da rede das companhias aéreas. Argumento que aeronaves modernas são mais eficientes e adequadas para operar voos entre cidades menores e menos centrais, favorecendo assim o serviço em mais mercados na periferia da rede. Com dados sobre o tráfego aéreo dos Estados Unidos, utilizo um arcabouço de escolha discreta para modelar as decisões de entrada das companhias e a subsequente escolha de aeronave em cada mercado. Experimentos contrafactuais mostram que, caso o desenvolvimento de tecnologia tivesse cessado em 1999, a rede de tráfego aéreo como um todo estaria mais centralizada, a maioria das companhias estariam operando redes mais centradas em torno de hubs, alcançando menos cidades e servindo menos mercados. / [en] This paper studies to what extent the development of new aircraft shapes airlines network structure. I argue that modern aircraft are more efficient and well suited to operate flights between smaller and less central cities, hence favoring the service of more markets in the periphery of the network. Using U.S. air traffic data, I employ a discrete choice framework to model airlines entry decisions and the subsequent aircraft choice to each market. Counterfactual experiments show that had aircraft technology ceased to improve in 1999, the air traffic network as a whole would be more centralized, airlines would be operating more hub-centered networks, reaching fewer cities, and serving fewer markets.

This work {\clqq}Multinational companies in air transport{\crqq} is focused on existence of multinational companies in segment of public air transport. The work is focused on appearance of multinational companies in the air transport or more precisely on analysis of strategic airline alliances in term of its multinational character. Analysis of two multinational airlines, members of two different strategic airline alliances and their confrontation on the basis of services provided to customers is the principal aim of this work. Two airlines of world signification and establishing members of two different alliances, French Air France and German Lufthansa, were chosen for this work. These two airlines were advises in three fields: destination offer, fleet and general services provided to customers.

nÃo hà / This work aims to answer questions regarding the Brazilian aviation market, and how it behaves in terms of oligopolistic competition. That is, there are some firms in this sector competing for the same market, thereby analyzing issues among these firms, you may indicate issues of efficiency in this sector. Using data on market share of each company, and the elasticity of the aviation industry for the year 2009, it was mixed reviews on possible mergers in the airline market in Brazil, giving in each profile that elasticity which would potentially bring a greater distortion for the sector. The methodology for this was the model PCAIDS (Proportionality-Calibrated Almost Ideal Demand System), proposed by Epstein and Rubinfeld (2002) that simulates the merger of two companies in an oligopolistic market, and has an advantage of requiring fewer parameters to your pet than other methodologies. The findings suggest that the merger of GOL TAM will bring a higher price increases than other combinations that were made to give some scenarios that were tested. / Este trabalho visa responder questÃes referentes ao mercado de aviaÃÃo brasileiro e verificar como este se comporta em termos de concorrÃncia oligopolista. Ou seja, existem algumas firmas, neste setor, disputando o mesmo mercado, com isso, analisando questÃes entre essas firmas, à possÃvel indicar questÃes de eficiÃncia neste setor. Utilizando dados sobre a parcela de mercado de cada empresa, e as elasticidades do setor de aviaÃÃo para o ano de 2009, foram feitas vÃrias anÃlises sobre possÃveis fusÃes no mercado aÃreo brasileiro, indicando em cada perfil de elasticidade qual seria a que potencialmente traria uma maior distorÃÃo para o setor. A metodologia para tal processo foi o modelo PCAIDS (Proportionality-Calibrated Almost Ideal Demand System), proposto por Epstein e Rubinfeld (2002), que simula a fusÃo de duas empresas em um mercado oligopolizado, e possui uma vantagem de exigir menos parÃmetros para a sua estimaÃÃo do que as outras metodologias. As conclusÃes apontam que a fusÃo da empresa GOL com a TAM trarà uma maior elevaÃÃo de preÃos do que se outras combinaÃÃes fossem feitas para alguns cenÃrios de elasticidade que foram testados.

This dissertation reports on the factors that contributed to the successful entry strategy of 1time Airline, a low cost carrier, into the South African airline industry as well as its competitive strategies within this context. Research interviews were conducted in November 2005 and research material gathered until end January 2006. Key issues include an evaluation of 1time's business model in relation to other low cost entrants as well as against material sourced through interviews with 1time Airline management, employees and consumers of the airline's product. Porter's Generic Strategies and Five Forces model are used as a framework in evaluating the airline. It is found that Nohria, Joyce and Robertson's "4+2 Formula" is effectively implemented at the airline, but that further implementation of Game Theory in terms of alliances should be investigated for continued success and sustainability.

Route planning forms an important aspect of airline operations for them to sustain the effects of deregulation and fierce competition. The Indian economic liberalization in 1991 has seen diminishing monopoly of Air India and dynamic demand splits amongst the service providers. Our research focuses on developing an aggregate route traffic demand forecasting (RTDF) model specifically for international carriers operating from India. The model is an econometric model that combines concepts of the traditional Gravity model of Physics and the Micro-economic theoretic model that links demand to price. In other words, the RTDF model is a fusion of the behavioral and gravity models. While developing the model, Becker’s approach of utility maximization has been made use of, thereby combining time and other inputs required to produce travel. The model is developed for the existing international routes from India with 2005 aggregative data provided by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which spanned 15 countries in Europe, Asia, Canada, and North America. The model has been validated and tested for its predictive power on a few intentionally left out routes from the original sample. The model explains about 70% of the variance, which is well above the acceptable zone for cross-sectional data. The model is then estimated for 2007 data on a few randomly selected high demand routes; the prediction error ranging from a minimum of 3.5% to a maximum of 13%, a range well within the acceptable error limits. We derive a sector-cost-model (SCM) by applying the concept of break-even analysis on the RTDF model. The SCM provides cost estimates on a particular route at various levels of airfare. The SCM helps us gain further insights into the business nature prevailing in the airline sector. On the viability of operations, we propose the sector-operation-fare (SOF) to be charged on a respective route, given the load factor, if the airline wishes to continue operations. For arriving at the SOF, we follow a demand oriented framework that comprises of two demand curves: the airline curve and the traffic curve. The numerical analyses provide room for policy formulations that help airlines in refining, redefining, and revitalizing the decision-making process in their operations. Airlines can use this model to forecast demand for a newly contemplated route and obtain a fair idea of the price they can charge the customer. In other words, airlines can estimate the economic viability of operations on a respective route.

Improving the predictability of airline schedules in the National Airspace System (NAS) has been a constant endeavor, particularly as system delays grow with ever-increasing demand. Airline schedules need to be resistant to perturbations in the system including Ground Delay Programs (GDPs) and inclement weather. The strategic search heuristic proposed in this dissertation significantly improves airline schedule reliability by assigning airport departure and arrival slots to each flight in the schedule across a network of airports. This is performed using a multi-objective optimization approach that is primarily based on historical flight and taxi times but also includes certain airline, airport, and FAA priorities. The intent of this algorithm is to produce a more reliable, robust schedule that operates in today's environment as well as tomorrow's 4-Dimensional Trajectory Controlled system as described the FAA's Next Generation ATM system (NextGen). This novel airline schedule optimization approach is implemented using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm which is capable of incorporating limited airport capacities. The core of the fitness function is an extensive database of historic operating times for flight and ground operations collected over a two year period based on ASDI and BTS data. Empirical distributions based on this data reflect the probability that flights encounter various flight and taxi times. The fitness function also adds the ability to define priorities for certain flights based on aircraft size, flight time, and airline usage. The algorithm is applied to airline schedules for two primary US airports: Chicago O'Hare and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson. The effects of this multi-objective schedule optimization are evaluated in a variety of scenarios including periods of high, medium, and low demand. The schedules generated by the optimization algorithm were evaluated using a simple queuing simulation model implemented in AnyLogic. The scenarios were simulated in AnyLogic using two basic setups: (1) using modes of flight and taxi times that reflect highly predictable 4-Dimensional Trajectory Control operations and (2) using full distributions of flight and taxi times reflecting current day operations. The simulation analysis showed significant improvements in reliability as measured by the mean square difference (MSD) of filed versus simulated flight arrival and departure times. Arrivals showed the most consistent improvements of up to 80% in on-time performance (OTP). Departures showed reduced overall improvements, particularly when the optimization was performed without the consideration of airport capacity. The 4-Dimensional Trajectory Control environment more than doubled the on-time performance of departures over the current day, more chaotic scenarios. This research shows that airline schedule reliability can be significantly improved over a network of airports using historical flight and taxi time data. It also provides for a mechanism to prioritize flights based on various airline, airport, and ATC goals. The algorithm is shown to work in today's environment as well as tomorrow's NextGen 4-Dimensional Trajectory Control setup.