Economies of scale in the US airline industry

This study investigates economies of scale in the US airline industry using annual data, from 1987 to 2009, on the largest airlines. The paper estimates both a translog and Cobb–Douglas model of both an economic and transportation definition of economies of scale. The study shows that the results from models based on the two definitions are remarkably similar except during rapid growth in output and that the largest US airlines operate under modest scale economies.     

Multi-period efficiency and productivity changes in US domestic airlines

This study tracked the static efficiency and dynamic productivity changes of 14 US airlines from 2006 to 2015. Moreover, we estimated the principal economic drivers of the environmental variables to increase the US domestic airlines' efficiency using the double bootstrap regression analysis. The major aspects of this study are as follows: First, network legacy carriers have the highest efficiency, whereas low-cost carriers are lowest. Nonetheless, network legacy carriers still have room to improve scale inefficiency. Second, the fluctuations in technical change, rather than in efficiency change, tended to have greater effect on the fluctuation of Malmquist productivity index for US domestic airlines. Third, M&A between US airlines have both positive and negative effects in terms of efficiency and economies of scale. Fourth, cost environmental factors have a negative effect on US airlines' efficiency, while revenue factor is a positive effect. The results of this study may help US airline industry practitioners to understand the US domestic airline environment from an operator's perspective.     

Explaining changes and trends in the airline industry: Economies of density,multiproduct scale,and spatial scope

Changes in the shape and size of airline networks have not been explained clearly from a cost perspective based on the finding of increasing returns to density for given route structures and constant returns to scale for variable network size. We reassessed the estimates of these economies by using new scale and scope indices, finding savings due to changes in route structures and various types of economies of spatial scope not previously calculated: network size, trunk-local services and domestic-international services. Results contribute new insights on the role of cost incentives in the observed changes and trends in the airline industry.     

Investigating the effects of economies of scope on firms’ pricing behavior: Empirical evidence from the US domestic airline industry

This study investigates to what extent cross-product (belly cargo) output affects (passenger ticket) prices in the US domestic airline industry. The empirical analysis indicates that greater cargo volumes generally result in lower air fares, presumably as a result of the airlines’ realization of economies of scope. This magnitude of this price effect, however, depends on certain firm and route market characteristics. The findings of this study add to extant research on economies of scope, multi-product yield management and airline pricing and provide important insights for policy makers and airline managers alike.     

Does ANSP size and scope matter in the European ANS market? A multi-product stochastic frontier approach

This paper assesses the existence of economies of scale and cost complementarities in the European air navigation services (ANS) industry to provide policymakers and air navigation service providers (ANSPs) insight into the economic viability of possible industry-led consolidation and unbundling opportunities. While previous studies using parametric methods made abstraction of the multi-product nature of the ANS industry, this paper tries to fill that gap by estimating a stochastic multi-product translog cost frontier. The existence of economies of density and scale is evaluated from the estimated cost frontier at the sample means as well as for individual ANSPs in the panel. The results suggest that during the period from 2006 to 2016 the European ANS industry faced economies of density and produced at constant economies of scale in the sample means. However, cost complementarities do not seem to be present.     

The good,the bad,and the ugly: 30 years of US airline deregulation

The US airline industry was deregulated in 1978 and has undergone significant changes in industry structure, profitability, employment, passenger volume, and patterns of service and fares, among other characteristics. This paper sets out to make three contributions to the literature as related to the story of airline deregulation. First, discussion of economic theory will provide the context for an updated overview of the positive, negative, and really negative results of US airline deregulation, summarized in the form of “the good”, “the bad”, and “the ugly”. Second, this paper provides a periodization of the 30-year history of US airline deregulation that is important in understanding the cycles of change as reflected in the industry’s financial performance and other relevant data. Third, this paper contributes to the renewed debate about the efficacy of deregulation and liberalization policies, particularly at a time when the global financial crisis has cast a harsh spotlight on the (un)desirability of these policies. Some of the good results during the 30 years of airline deregulation, from the industry and consumer perspective, include higher passenger volumes, more service to the most popular destinations, and lower fares on average. Bad results include financial and employment instability, diminution in the quality of airline service overall, and fewer flights and higher fares to smaller places. The recent 2000–2005 period has been particularly ugly, as the airline industry has lost over $30 billion, and several high-profile carriers, such as United, Delta, Northwest, and US Airways, were forced into bankruptcy.     

Price premiums and low cost carrier competition

This study presents a time series examination of price premiums in the US airline industry. Price premiums are defined as price markups due to domination and concentration at the airport and route market levels. The differential effect of these price premium drivers is empirically investigated, and it is shown that the largest components of price premiums are those from airport market share and airport concentration. The effect of low cost carrier competition on the level and composition of price premiums is of particular interest in this study. The results indicate that low cost carriers do not charge price premiums, and that high cost carriers’ price premiums tend to be lower when there is competition by low cost carriers. While the absolute values of price premiums have been fairly constant over the 1992–2002 time frame, the proportion of US passengers subject to price premiums has decreased due to the increasing share of low cost carrier traffic.     

The demand for US air transport service: a chaos and nonlinearity investigation

This paper examines the behavior of the US airline industry's service demand. Monthly aggregate data for the industry are analyzed. While we find strong evidence of nonlinear dependence in the air transport service time series, the evidence is not consistent with chaos. We also show that GARCH models successfully explain the nonlinear structures in the US airline industry's service series. Finally, within-sample forecasts of air transport demand from the GARCH models outperform those of simple autoregressive models.     

Economies of traffic density and scale in the integrated air cargo industry: The cost structures of FedEx Express and UPS Airlines

This paper examines the cost structures of the leading integrated air cargo carriers, FedEx Express and UPS Airlines. A total cost model is estimated for the two carriers using quarterly data on domestic operations and costs over a nine-year period (2003–2011). The estimated model indicates that the integrated industry exhibits increasing returns to traffic density and constant returns to scale. Accounting for carrier-specific differences in cost structure and network size, FedEx Express is found to be more cost-efficient than UPS Airlines. Looking at the carriers individually, UPS Airlines exhibits substantial economies of traffic density and constant returns to scale while FedEx Express' cost structure is characterized by weak economies of density and constant returns to scale. The combined effect of returns to density and returns to scale on the cost structures of integrated carriers is captured by economies of size. Both FedEx Express and UPS Airlines exhibit economies of size, indicating that carriers in the integrated industry can be more cost efficient by making appropriate adjustments to their network size as their output grows. Moreover, the relative cost-efficiencies of the carriers are reversed when their network-size differences are not controlled.     

The U.S. Airways Group: A post-merger analysis

America West Airlines acquired the bankrupt US Airways on September 27, 2005 to form the US Airways Group, improving its competitive position in the US airline industry. This paper analyzes the post-merger performance of the US Airways Group using airline operating metrics and financial ratios for the period 2005 to 2013. While the airline has still a long way to go to improve its leverage and liquidity ratios, its capital structure and ability to pay its obligations have improved since 2005. Moreover, although the airline is still inefficient in utilizing its assets, the efficiency improvements achieved since the merger have resulted in profits and positive returns to investors. Its share prices have also largely outperformed the S&P 500 and the XAL since the merger, an indication that investors are pleased with how the merger is developing over time. In view of the US Airways Group's improving financial and operating performance, the merger is, essentially, a success.     

The impact of airline lease agreements on the financial performance of US hub airports

This paper employs benchmarking analysis to examine the financial implications of the different types of airline lease agreements used by US airports. Five key financial performance areas relating to cost effectiveness, revenue generation, commercial performance, financial profitability and capital investment are analysed using financial data from 2011/12 for 23 of the 29 large-hub airports. The results show that compensatory airports are the most financially efficient, particularly in terms of debt efficiency, revenue generation and profitability while the vertical airport airline relationship that is common at residual airports delivers higher levels of commercial performance and cost efficiency.     

Fuel hedging and airline operating costs

Fuel hedging is a common risk management tool used in the airline industry. But past studies have not addressed the question of whether fuel hedging creates any benefit to airline operations. This study is the first work that empirically examines the role of fuel hedging in reducing airlines’ operating costs. Using US airlines data from 2000 through 2012, we find that, after accounting for the presence of cost inefficiency, fuel-hedging airlines had about 9–12% lower operating costs, but this effect is statistically insignificant. Irrespective of the hedging status, US airlines could reduce operating costs by an average of 12–14% per year without reducing output.     

Reputation,search cost,and airfares

As cost of search for consumers decreases with the spread of the internet; researchers question whether this trend will lead to lower price or higher product differentiation. This paper examines a sample of offered fares to see if an airline choosing not to distribute its tickets via a channel where competitors' offers are directly observable may attempt taking advantage of potential customers. We find this to be the case. Our study suggests that the US airline industry appears to be evolving toward more product differentiation in the internet age.     

Air transportation and urban-economic restructuring: competitive advantage in the US Carolinas

The theoretical agenda of this paper is to bring airports and airline operations more squarely into the mainstream of the urban and regional development literature. The paper examines the spatial and temporal patterns of air passenger flows by airport in the US Carolinas. An emphasis is placed on articulating the linkages that exist between airport operations at the local level, the structural composition of the regional economy, and the competitive strategies of the airline industry. Particular attention was paid to administrative and auxiliary employment levels because it is a knowledge-based producer service that tends to seek out markets that offer high levels of air service connectivity to other places. A major finding in this paper is that those US Carolina airports that experienced significant gains in air passenger volume (e.g., Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham) tended to experience comparable gains in the employment levels of administrative and auxiliary workers, particularly in the manufacturing sector.     

New airline entry rates in deregulated air transport markets

This paper studies the influencing factors on entry (certification) of new airlines into the US airline industry over 21 years (1979–1999). These rates exhibit considerable fluctuations over the observed period. We analyze the US airline industry for a period of 21 years to determine the relationship of the observed fluctuations in the entry rates with political and extraordinary events, economic conditions and several industry specific variables. We present maximum likelihood estimates of an entry model on the negative Binomial distribution. This methodology reflects the discrete nature of the dependent variable. The results support the notions of positive macro-economic and industry specific developments on the entry opportunities of new airline companies.     

Environmental costs in European aviation

This paper presents estimates of environmental costs in a set of 36 European airline markets. Cost are calculated for noise, air pollution and accident risk using data on aircraft emissions, exposure-response parameters and economic valuation of environmental goods. The ‘medium value’ cost estimate is 0.0201ECU per passenger-km. This result suggests that environmental costs represent only a small fraction (2.5%) of the internal cost of aviation as measured by the average ticket price. Noise costs are the dominant environmental cost at some 75% of the cost total. The medium estimates are sensitive to changes in the various assumptions in the pathways: a low and high estimate are three times lower and five times higher, respectively, than the medium estimate. The study further suggests that there are environmental economies of scale in air transport and that Chapter 2 aircraft are about a factor four more environmentally costly than Chapter 3 aircraft.     

Identifying airline cost economies: An econometric analysis of the factors affecting aircraft operating costs

This paper provides the results of an econometric analysis of the influences of airline characteristics on the average operating costs per aircraft movement. The analysis combines a comprehensive selection of airline-output variables, airline-fleet variables, and airline-market variables. The results confirm the existence of economies of density, economies of load factor, economies of aircraft utilisation and economies of aircraft size. The paper does not provide evidence of economies of scale, economies of stage length or economies of fleet commonality. Furthermore, airlines that additionally operate full freighters, airlines that are members of a worldwide alliance and airlines that operate a multi-hub system face higher average operating costs per aircraft movement. Surprisingly, the regression results demonstrate that airlines that use newer aircraft have higher average operating costs per aircraft movement, suggesting that ownership costs (depreciation and leasing costs) of new aircraft outweigh the increasing maintenance costs of old aircraft. Finally, the results show that airlines that have a dominant position at their hubs or bases have higher operating costs per aircraft movement, implying that the absence of serious competitive pressure enables airlines to charge higher ticket prices and, with that, leads to a limited focus on cost savings.     

Aviation infrastructure performance and airline cost: a statistical cost estimation approach

The relationship between the performance of the US National Airspace System (NAS) and airline costs is examined by estimating airline cost functions that include NAS performance metrics as arguments, using quarterly data for 10 US domestic airlines. Performance metrics that vary by airline and quarter are developed by applying principal component analysis to seven underlying variables, including average delay, delay variance, and the proportion of flights that is cancelled. This analysis reveals that variation in the seven variables can be adequately captured by three or fewer factors, which we term NAS performance factors. If three factors are used, they can be interpretted as “delay”, “variability”, and “disruption”, the latter two of which are merged into a single “irregularity” factor in the two-factor model. Cost function estimation results confirm the anticipated link between NAS performance and airline cost. In the cost models with two and three performance factors, the irregularity and disruption factors are found to have the strongest cost impacts. These results challenge the prevailing assumption that delay reduction is the most important benefit from NAS enhancements. Using the estimated cost models, we predict airline cost savings from substantially improved NAS performance in the range $1–4 billion annually.     

Modeling the effects of wage premiums on airline competition under asymmetric economies of density: A case study from Brazil

This paper investigates the effects of wage premiums on the competition between Full Service Carriers (FSC) and Low Fare Carriers (LFC) in the airline industry. We study the impact of changes in the labor market and the resulting effects on performance in the product market and examine the role of economies of density. We develop an oligopoly model of airline competition with endogenous wages and simulate increases in labor costs. We apply the model to the case of the most important domestic route of Brazil using airline/route-specific demand and costs data. Our chief contribution relies on the empirical model of asymmetric economies of density for the competing business models. We estimate that LFCs have higher economies of density than FSCs. With the empirical models of demand, costs and wages, we compute the wage-elasticities of price-cost markups. We find that, on account of the higher sensitivity of marginal costs to labor costs of the FSCs, their markups are more affected by wage premium increases than the markups of the LFCs. The results are attenuated by higher economies of density, but amplified by higher price-elasticities of demand and lower economic growth.     

The spatial and temporal dimensions of the interdependence between the airline industry and the Chinese economy

The airline industry contributes largely to the economic development of a region. At the same time, the fortunes of the industry can also be affected by regional economic change. This paper uses geographically weighted correlation analysis to investigate the spatial heterogeneity and temporal change of this interdependence as seen in China over the years from 2005 to 2016. The results show that the interdependence between the airline industry and provincial economies is non-stationary, generally with a spatial variation along the east-west axis across China's provinces. Further, the temporal change in the interdependence was affected by specific economic changes, such as the global crisis of 2008, when it weakened. Specifically, air passenger activities in the eastern provinces were more sensitive to some economic changes of 2012, while air freight activities in the western and central provinces were more sensitive to the global economic crisis of 2008. The size of urban agglomeration and regional GDP also influence the spatial heterogeneity of this interdependence with weaker links as GDP increases. It is possible that liberalization of the airline industry could enhance the interdependence in advanced regions. Thus, our results provide significant policy implications for a joint focus on the development of the regional economy and the airline industry.