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The connectivity provided by full-service network carriers under the umbrella of airline alliances is increasingly challenged by the services of Middle Eastern airlines via their own hubs, and the rise of new passenger strategies like self-connectivity. While these two developments can potentially benefit consumers with more services and lower fares, the rise of Middle East carriers has been met with opposition by EU and US airlines that call for increased protectionism. In addition, only a few airports in the world actively support self-connections. In this context, this study aims to investigate (1) the markets in which Middle East carriers exert a stronger dominance in terms of the number of passenger connections, (2) whether EU, US, or Asian hubs provide a competitive quality of connectivity in terms of travel time, and (3) whether a significant potential for self-connections is hidden at major airports worldwide. To that end, several datasets of passenger bookings (MIDT), airline schedules, and minimum connecting times between 2012 and 2015 are combined in a connections-building methodology that delivers six market-specific airport connectivity indicators for our benchmarking exercise. Our findings show that although European and some Asian hubs have lost traffic in global markets, they remain competitive from a quality perspective. US hubs have maintained their market share and competitive position. Finally, we identify the airports and airlines with the highest potential to provide self-connecting travel options, which can become an attractive new source of revenue for the parties involved.

Congestion as a consequence of the rapidly growing air traffic is one of the outstanding problems of the air transportation industry. Traffic impediment rates, having an increasing acceleration while the airport capacities have been kept constant due to several reasons, cause problems such as arrival/departure delays, schedule interruptions, cancellations and customer dissatisfaction. In this paper, the author aims to study transitioning from a single-hub air transportation system to a multi-hub infrastructure via Monte Carlo simulation.

The current hub has reached its capacity limits for long so that the growth potential of the air transportation has been affected adversely. One of the possible remedies suggested by authorities, professionals and academics was to transform the air transportation infrastructure into a multi-hub setting. Current air traffic of the country was modeled by means of simulation. Airport capacities and performances are simulated and analyzed under different scenarios considering a potential alternative hub along with the central one. Possible delays in both hubs are studied in case of moderately increasing traffic congestion.

As a result, decreased delay levels in the central hub are observed, whereas no delays are experienced in the potential one in all the scenarios.

This study, proposing to organize the national and international air traffic of the country while harmonizing the delay rates and increasing the passenger satisfaction, is to contribute significantly to the aviation sector companies, airliners and airport operators by shedding light on the imminent capacity issues air transportation industry is going to face.

This chapter evaluates the operational efficiency of major airports in the United States. The airport is defined as a major point of contact in the aviation industry, and on-time operations is regarded as a core service factor. We develop a bounded data envelopment analysis (DEA) model that evaluates the punctuality of airports and proposes a three-stage approach that analyzes not only current operations performance but also efficiency changes over time. We classify airports into several classes according to Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) definitions and compare their class efficiencies through decomposed efficiency scores. We find significant differences in efficiency scores between classifications.

This study develops a method for categorizing airports based on the amount of cargo each airport handles in relation to its passenger traffic. Such a categorization allows for systematic comparisons of airports largely specializing in cargo with those that have more balanced freight/passenger roles. The results show that cargo-focused hub airports (i.e., major cargo-handling airports that handle little or no passenger traffic) in the continental United States shoulder a growing burden in freight movement. One of the most successful of these, Chicago Rockford International Airport, has risen to become the 15th largest airport with respect to domestic cargo shipments on the US mainland, while Texas's Fort Worth Alliance Airport and Seattle's Boeing Field also rank among the top 50. A considerable amount of volatility, however, has accompanied the evolution of this specialized grouping of airports over the past 20 years. Presently, among the 100 airports on the U.S. mainland handling the most domestic freight, cargo-focused hub airports serve only a secondary role, handling less than 5% of domestic air freight shipments as measured by weight. Most major hubs operated by air-freight integrators, such as those developed by FedEx and UPS at Memphis, TN, and Louisville, KY, respectively, are at mixed-purpose airports that have a greater balance of passenger and freight activity. The findings point to some of the unique challenges facing airports that specialize in the movement of freight.

Lessons are drawn from the experience of the logistics hub at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport for Korea s Inc he on International Airport. After providing an overview of the air cargo market the key factors underpinning the success of air cargo hubs are outlined. Examples are provided of Schiphol's multi-level strategy that aims at being simultaneously an air transport hub, a multimodal hub, and a logistics hub as a part of the airport city strategy. Consideration needs to be given to how the successful development of an air transport hub depends on the capacity problems at other competing air traffic nodes in the region. With this background, interest is centered upon the prospects of the Incheon International Airport becoming a cargo hub for Japan.

Supply chains deliver goods and services between shippers and receivers, covering collection, transportation, distribution as well as their handling and storage in between. In particular, transportation services are carried out by different transport modes. In some modern supply chains, different categories of air cargo carriers – combinations, freighter-only, and/or integrators – provide critical transport services.

This chapter develops a methodology for estimating the performance of supply chains served by an air cargo carrier network. The methodology is based on indicators of infrastructure use, technical/technological level, operational factors, economic factors, and environmental performance. This proposed methodology is applied to estimate performance of supply chains served by an integrated air cargo carrier – FedEx Express – operating a single hub in the US domestic air network. Results indicate that the methodology may be useful for estimation of overall supply chain performance under the condition that relevant data are available.

Using Social Network Analysis (SNA), this paper examines the inter-country airline logistics relationships in East Asia. Based on the flight schedule data, which has been gathered by the authors, the overall features of airline logistics structure and the specific roles of each airport could be more clearly examined.

The main results of this paper are as follows: Beijing has the highest Degree Centrality, but excluding the domestic lines, Incheon has the highest Degree Centrality, which would imply that a relatively high Centrality of logistics for China’s airports is due to the greater number of domestic lines. The focal hub status of Incheon airport is also supported by the fact that Incheon contains the highest Betweenness Centrality.

Secondly, evaluated by the types of brokerage role, Incheon has a remarkably strong role as a liaison, which means Incheon airport functions as a transfer hub between two different regions outside of Korea. However, considering only the to/from China airline links, Hong Kong has the highest score as a liaison. These conflicting results imply that as China’s airline transportation continuously increases, Hong Kong will become a strong rival to Incheon.

Thirdly, in the analysis of Structural Hole which functions the broker and acts as a hub by linking unconnected airports, Incheon has the highest possibilities as a hub airport. However, only considering to/from China airlines, Hong Kong would dominate Incheon.

This study aims to evaluate the network robustness of major Asian airlines and to explore which airport types have the greatest impact on robustness. We also analyze airports’ specific brokerage roles and their impacts on the robustness of the entire air route network. We select 10 major Asian full-service airlines that operate the main passenger terminals at the top-ranked hub airports in Asia. Data is collected from the Official Airline Guide passenger route dataset for 2017. The results of the network robustness analysis show that Air China and China Eastern Airlines have relatively high network robustness. In contrast, airlines with broader international coverage, such as Japan Airlines, Korean Air, and Singapore Airlines have higher network vulnerability. The measure of betweenness centrality has a greater impact on the robustness of air route networks than other centrality measures have. Furthermore, the brokerage role analysis shows that Chinese airports are more influential within China and Asia but are less influential globally when compared to other major hub airports in Asia. Incheon International Airport, Singapore Changi Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, and Narita International Airport play strong “liaison” roles. Among the brokerage roles, the liaison role has a greater impact on the robustness of air route networks.