The market development of aviation biofuel: Drivers and constraints

Aviation biofuel is technically viable and nearing the commercial stage. In the last ten years, biofuels have moved from relative obscurity to a point where certain types of fuel have become fully certified for commercial use in up to 50% blends with standard jet fuel and commercial partnerships between airlines and biofuel producers are being established. Yet despite numerous successful test flights, aviation biofuels have yet to become widely commercialised. Drawing on the findings of in-depth interviews with leading global aviation biofuel stakeholders undertaken between October and December 2011, this paper identifies and examines the perceived factors that are affecting the market development of biofuels for aviation. The paper illustrates that market development is being driven by the combined effects of rising jet fuel prices, the potential future impact of emissions legislation and concerns about fuel (in)security. However, commercialisation is being constrained by high production costs, limited availability of suitable feedstocks, uncertainty surrounding the definition of the sustainability criteria, and a perceived lack of both national and international political and policy support for aviation biofuel. The implications of these findings for commercial aviation and the future development of global market for aviation biofuel market are discussed.     

The economic impact of the lifting of sanctions on tourism in Iran: a computable general equilibrium analysis

The imposition of sanctions on Iran, after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, resulted in economic hardship. Many problems were experienced, such as increased unemployment and high inflation, currency fluctuations and economic instability. One area that was hard hit was the tourism sector. With the lifting of United Nations sanctions on 16 January 2016, there is an opportunity for an increase in international tourists to experience the natural attractions and cultural heritage that Iran has to offer. This research employs a single-country multi-sector computable general equilibrium model to estimate the economic impact of the lifting of sanctions to tourism and the wider economy in Iran. The findings reveal that tourism provides a boost to the economy; however, there are redistributive effects that draw resources away from other export sectors. However, just as in the past where there has been a heavy reliance on oil and natural gas, expanding tourism too quickly will also cause problems. Moderate tourism growth would be the appropriate sustainable path to take.     

The impacts of high-speed trains on British economic geography: a study of the UK’s InterCity 125/225 and its effects

The arrival of high-speed trains (HSTs) leads to unprecedented time-space effects, potentially assisting face-to-face contacts in knowledge-generating process, yet its wider spatial-economic impacts are still open to debate. This research attempts to fill in this gap with empirical evidence by studying the inter-regional impacts of upgraded British InterCity 125/225 on British economic geography over 30 years. The six study routes of London-outbound trains serving major railways stations in 26 local authorities were selected as units of analysis, with the observation of differential effects both between HSTs and non-HSTs towns and among each group of towns, to understand time-space effects of InterCity 125/225 whose potential impacts on local economic strength and knowledge intensive development. The key findings suggest that the differential HST effects on British economic geography could be classified into three influential zones, namely 1-h, 2-h, and over-2-h towns. HST has had substantial and demonstrable effects in aiding this transition within a 2-h travel limit of London, thus helping to generate renewed economic growth, but that the effects have not been automatic or universal. Regarding future British HST policy, the implications arising from this study is that cities connected to a new HST could seize opportunities which non-HST cities will not be able to do so, but this is not a zero-sum situation. Instead, it involves a national strategy to develop a hierarchical network with HST between London and key regional hubs, well integrated at these hubs with intra-regional transport systems. This indicates a strong case for a finer-grained and deeper probing analysis at an intra-regional level of the potential for rail improvement as an agent of change in city-region development. We hope to report further on this in a subsequent paper.     

The evolving landscape of Chinese aviation policies and impact of a deregulating environment on Chinese carriers

This paper examines the recent developments of China’s aviation polices focusing on airline consolidation, the opening up of the domestic aviation market, and the adoption of more liberal international aviation policy. It then goes onto assess the impacts of the above policies on the industry structure, the performance of major airlines, and the competitiveness of Chinese airlines in international markets. The study shows that the industry became more competitive following the opening up of the domestic aviation market. Although major airlines saw an increase in passenger volume and an improvement in load factors, the falling yield and rising costs make them difficult to grow profitably. Moreover, Chinese airlines largely failed to capitalise on building an international network and the majors were weak in international competition. Strategic use of aviation policy to build a strong and profitable airline industry is still a formidable task lying ahead for policymakers.     

Analysis of airport weather impact on on-time performance of arrival flights for the Brazilian domestic air transportation system

Air traffic operations are significantly impacted by weather conditions. These external factors may impose operational constraints and generate demand-capacity imbalances, leading to reduced on-time performance, additional airline costs and inconveniences to passengers. Efficient management of such disruptions requires an understanding of the main causes of flight delays towards increasing their predictability. In this study, we investigate the impacts of airport surface weather conditions on the likelihood of flight delays for the Brazilian domestic air transportation system. We use historical flight schedule, on-time performance and weather data and estimate a logit model to analyze how different meteorological variables at the airport of destination affect the probability of a delayed arrival. We obtain empirical evidence for the impacts of low ceiling and visibility conditions, precipitation and wind gusts on the likelihood of arrival delays for the set of Brazilian airports analyzed.     

A review of research on risk and safety modelling in civil aviation

Safety is considered as some of the most important operational characteristics of contemporary civil aviation. An extensive regulatory structure has been established to supplement the private airline, airport and air navigation systems, incentives to limit the risks of flying. This paper reviews the research on risk and safety modelling in civil aviation. In such a context, the basic concepts and definitions of risk, safety and their evaluation are described. The review focuses on four categories of models for safety assessment: causal for aircraft and air traffic control/management operations, collision risk, human factor error and third-party risk.     

The impact of COVID-19 on airline passenger travel behavior: An exploratory analysis on the Chinese aviation market

China was the first airline market in the world to be hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been gradually recovering as the pandemic is largely contained domestically. However, with the global pandemic spread and great uncertainty, there has been a remarkable change in airline passengers’ travel behavior. This paper collected air passenger-level data from TravelSky in the Chinese market. In addition to the analyses on aggregate passenger flow patterns, this paper explores changes in airline passenger travel behavior, such as ticket booking time, age distribution of passengers, refunds and ticket changes, and passenger arrival time at airports. This is one of the first studies to focus on micro-level changes in airline passenger travel behavior by using objective passenger-level data. The pandemic-induced psychological changes in air travelers are explored, providing useful managerial and policymaking implications for the normalization of the pandemic and the recovery of the airline market in the post-pandemic era.     

Reviewing the DATAS of aviation research data: Diversity,availability, tractability,applicability, and sources

The field of aviation research is entering the era of big data. While data-driven advancements in aviation have clearly brought about applicable models and results with immediate implications, we argue that the influx of aviation data should be better characterized and documented to enable more efficient and standardized usage. To this end, we examine 200 well-cited research articles from sub-disciplines ranging from revenue management to air traffic control published on or after 2010 in order to analyze the diversity, availability, tractability, applicability, and sources (DATAS) of data utilized in aviation research. We find high levels of data diversity within aviation research, with 16 data categories ranging from air traffic flow management-type data to data from distributed sensors in line with the Internet-of-Things (IoT) paradigm. We identified a dominance of proprietary, non-public data in aviation research, with 68% of the 200 research articles utilizing solely proprietary data in deriving their results, and a further 8% utilizing a mixture of proprietary and publicly available data. The pervasiveness of proprietary data has implications on reproducibility and extending research results. We also highlight the increasing tractability of the data by surveying the computational power required to process the data sets, and present vignettes of applications and results that stem from these data-driven studies. Finally, we propose several recommendations regarding standardizing data source nomenclature as well as increasing the availability of and usage of publicly available data.     

The Air Liberalisation Index as a tool in measuring the impact of South Africa's aviation policy in Africa on air passenger traffic flows

In Africa, the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD) to date remains the single most important air transport reform policy, the continent-wide implementation of which remains pending. This study employs the Air Liberalisation Index (ALI), developed by the Word Trade Organisation (WTO) Secretariat, to measure the impact of each of the seven quantifiable market access features of South Africa's aviation policy in Africa on air passenger traffic flows. A fixed one-way panel regression technique was applied to panel data, representing five air transport markets: intra-African, the SADC, East African, West African and North African over two time periods (2000–2010; 2006–2010). The results proved to be significant in three markets, intra-African, the SADC and East African and provide new insights into the relationship between air passenger traffic flows and aviation policy in the South African – intra-African and regional contexts.     

Innovation and value creation in the context of aviation: a Systematic Literature Review

Over the last few decades, the aviation industry has produced several innovative solutions that have benefited the air travel industry and many other industrial and service organisations. However, few attempts have been made to map out these innovations and, more importantly, assess how they add value to aviation businesses. This paper aims to address this gap by providing a Systematic Literature Review to analyse themes, content relationships, approaches, and how innovations create value in this sector. We achieve this aim by analysing 57 peer-reviewed academic publications from 1999 to 2018. The thematic and content analysis made it possible to consolidate the findings by developing an overview of the themes and how innovation has supported them. The results identified ten main themes, i.e. airports, services, management, technology, airlines, system, development, market, customers, and processes. Through the content analysis, 114 value-creating innovations were identified, primarily towards ‘efficiency’, ‘convenience, new features and portfolio differentiation’, and ‘sustainable growth and environment'.     

The impact of economic policy uncertainty on stock returns of Turkish tourism companies

Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) has various implications for financial markets. This study examines the effects of EPU on stock prices of listed tourism companies in Turkey for the time period of 2002–2013. We show that EPU in Europe and Turkey has significant negative effects on tourism index returns. The finding reflects that stock returns of the Turkish tourism companies apparently depend on domestic and international economic uncertainty. Among the included macroeconomic variables, consumer confidence index is the only factor which has an impact on stock returns.     

The effect of aviation responses to the control of imported COVID-19 cases

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has a lasting and unprecedented negative impact on the global aviation industry. While countries such as China have successfully curbed the domestic outbreak of the virus with various restrictive and preventive measures, the challenge of avoiding imported cases remains. More importantly, it is still unclear to what extent these implemented aviation emergency responses have effectively mitigated the transmission risk of the virus. This paper provides an empirical assessment of aviation responses to the control of imported COVID-19 cases, with a focus on the following three strategies: the “circuit breaker” policy, the “negative Nucleic Acid testing (NAT)”, and the “double negative tests” requirement. Non-recursive structural equation models (SEM) with latent variables were applied to detailed international flight data and individual epidemic survey data of Guangzhou, China, between May 1 and November 30, 2020. The results show that the “double negative tests” measure has a positive effect on eliminating the number of SARS-CoV-2 carriers, while the effects of single “circuit breaker” and its co-intervention with “negative NAT” are conterproductive. This study provides important implications to civil aviation agencies in regard to medium and long-term risk control of imported cases. Specifically, although the circuit breaker mechanism was designed to target on the risk control of imported COVID-19 cases, it may be more effective to carefully maintain a timely and reliable pre-boarding screening and testing to curb the number of imported cases.     

Determinants of blockchain adoption in the aviation industry: Empirical evidence from Korea

Recently, blockchain technology has gradually been used in the logistics and supply chain sector. However, research related to blockchain applications in aviation remains in its infancy. This research provides actionable insights into the determinants of blockchain adoption in the aviation industry. The technology acceptance model is applied to explain the aviation industry's intention to adopt blockchain technology for potential applications and future improvements. Six factors are developed by reviewing the literature. Moreover, a two-step structural equation modeling approach with confirmatory factor analysis is used to analyze the research data and test hypotheses in this study. Results reveal that tracking and tracing, digitalized management, air traffic management, regulatory governance and industry standards, and technological improvements and optimization on efficiency exert a positive influence on intention to use blockchain. Moreover, future improvements in regulatory governance and industry standards, and technological improvements and optimization on efficiency are demonstrated to enhance users' perceived usefulness in tracking and tracing, digitalized management, and air traffic management.     

Emissions trading for international aviation—an estimation of the economic impact on selected European airlines

International aviation is responsible for between 2.5% and 3% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions that are partly held responsible for climate change. International aviation is not subject to any regulatory framework for the limitation of these emissions. From an economic point of view, the introduction of an emissions trading scheme would be an appropriate instrument to limit these emissions. This paper outlines the possibilities on how aviation could be included in existing emissions trading schemes and gives an overview on the current political discussion. It continues with an empirical estimation of the impacts on operating costs and transport demand for low cost, full service, holiday and regional airlines taking Ryanair, Lufthansa, Condor and Air Dolomiti as examples, under three different design options for an emissions trading scheme. Finally, conclusions about the impacts on intra-European and worldwide airline competition are drawn.     

An economic impact analysis of the Korean exhibition industry

This study estimates the multiplier effect of the exhibition industry. In order to calculate the exhibition industry's total expenditure, consideration is made of three major sources of expenditure including hosts, exhibitors and foreign attendees. According to the summary of the economic impact analysis, the total exhibition receipts of US$645.7 million produced US$1.2 billion in output; 21 692 full‐time equivalent jobs, US$260 million in personal income for residents, US$577.4 million in value‐added, US$54.2 million in indirect tax and US$104.3 million in imports. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tourism and economic regeneration: the role of skills development

An increasing number of local economic development agencies in the UK are turning to tourism as a means of urban regeneration and employment creation. Although initiatives vary, there is a nationally inspired emphasis on the development of employee skills as a core element of many regeneration strategies. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of the demand for and utilisation of skills by tourism firms in East London, an area that is the recipient of substantial urban aid funding, a proportion of which has an overt focus on skills enhancement designed to develop the tourism sector. It then examines the processes of skills supply within the locality. The paper concludes by identifying the key issues likely to be important if regeneration programmes are to be effective. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of London airports in providing connectivity for the UK: regional dependence on foreign hubs

In a context of ongoing debate about the future UK aviation policy and its implications for regional economic development, this paper discusses the role of London Heathrow and the South East airports in providing connectivity for the UK, with particular focus on the international markets that originate from regional UK airports. Using an MIDT dataset of worldwide passenger itineraries served by the European airport network during May 2013, we first establish whether London Heathrow can currently be considered the most important hub for the UK, in terms of traffic generation, connectivity, and centrality, while also measuring the dependence of UK regions on foreign airports and airlines to remain connected with the rest of the world. Results show that, despite the competition, London Heathrow benefits from its massive traffic generation to remain the most central gateway for overall UK air transport markets. However, when only regional markets are considered, significant dependence on foreign hubs appears in many destinations, particularly to Asia–Pacific or the BRIC countries where above 80% of passengers use transfer flights. These results fit nicely with the observed trends of seat de-concentration and hub-bypassing in the airline industry. While dependence on foreign hubs can be interpreted as a sign of vulnerability, there is also the argument that bypassing Heathrow allows regional airports to develop new markets and reduce the level of congestion in the London airport system.     

A holistic approach to evaluating the effect of safety barriers on the performance of safety reporting systems in aviation organisations

Safety reporting systems are a necessary component of any Safety Management System (SMS) in contemporary aviation organisations. Improving the performance of safety reporting systems can significantly enhance the reliability of safety information and allow the implementation of more effective risk assessment processes. Previous researchers have identified several barriers that influence the effectiveness of safety reporting systems, ranging from individual barriers to organisational issues. However, none of these studies has addressed the concomitant effect of the different barriers as a means of determining the overall effect on the performance of existing reporting systems. This paper proposes a holistic approach to this problem by developing a model that can help to determine the cumulative effect of organisational, working environment and individual barriers on the performance of a safety reporting system in an aviation organisation. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to examine the relationships amongst the different variables considered in our study. The model was constructed using a broad range of data collected from a survey conducted in a military aviation organisation, with the purpose of identifying the barriers to reporting in this particular context. Results show that the proposed model allows to accurately quantify the impact of the various concomitant barriers in the reporting system, providing a powerful resource to assist stakeholders in the decision-making process that is inherent to the implementation of tailored actions to improve the safety performance of aviation organisations.     

Tourism managers' view of the economic impact of cruise traffic: the case of southern Spain

This article focuses on analysing the perception that the tourism sector itself has of its impact in cities at which cruises call. We use a sample of 371 managers of tourism establishments in the hinterlands of two Spanish cruise ports. The conclusions confirm the good public image that cruise traffic has traditionally enjoyed. However, the vision that the managers have is not uniform but depends on the characteristics of the tourist establishment and its own experience. Managers also advocate the direct intervention of the public administrations, even with economic aid, to favour the implementation of cruise tourism in their cities.     

Strait crossings and economic development: Developing economic impact assessment by means of ex post analyses

There is widespread scepticism among politicians and authorities concerning CBA as a main instrument for decision-making. This may cause possible bias towards non-quantitative factors as decisive. The challenge is to improve the methological approach, carefully examining the real benefits for road users. One way of doing this is to develop ex post CBA to test how critical assumptions fit to reality. The focus of this paper is on ex post analyses carried out with five case studies in larger infrastructure projects to assess the economic profitability actually occurring from new infrastructure. There are substantial differences in benefits ex post compared with the ex ante analyses, mainly explained by a shift parameter in willingness to pay (WTP) for the improvements. These ‘inconvenience costs’ saved by the road users add to the traditional value-of-time benefits. The paper also examines the profitability of private versus public funding and ends up with some considerations on regional impacts of transport infrastructure. A short presentation of a pilot study from two of the fixed links to elicit the influence on local industry is given. Some informal results support the theory of forward and backward linkages from new economic geography.