Attitudes of ageing passengers to air travel since the coronavirus pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on the demand for air transport. One passenger segment that has received relatively little attention is ageing passengers (defined as aged 65+), in spite of the fact that this group has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and in recent years has been viewed as a potential growth market. Therefore, the aim of this brief paper is to analyse the attitudes of ageing passengers by assessing air travel plans in the next 12 months, examining the factors influencing future flying decisions, and investigating the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on perceived risks and experiences associated with flying. The findings show that over 60% of ageing passengers are planning to travel by air in the next 12 months, although the nature of their trips may change. Factors such as flexible ticket booking and quarantine rules do not appear to be key drivers affecting travel decisions and within the different stages of the air journey, getting to/from the airport is perceived as the safest stage. The findings suggest that there are various COVID-19 implications for airlines and airports serving this market segment, ranging from the use of self-service technology, the generation of commercial/ancillary revenues and the design of surface access policies.     

Analyzing tactical control strategies for aircraft arrivals at an airport using a queuing model

This paper proposes to analyze control strategies for arrival air traffic at an airport using a classical queuing model. The parameters of our model are estimated by means of a data-driven analysis of two years of radar tracks and flight plans for arrival flights at Tokyo International Airport from 2016 to 2017. Our results show that increasing the capacity with one or two more aircraft in the airspace up to 60 NM around the airport significantly mitigates arrival delays, even when assuming future, increased arrival traffic volumes. The outcomes of this study provide insights into the effectiveness of arrival control strategies and are seen as a means to recommend scenarios to be further analyzed with human-in-the-loop simulations.     

Towards a taxonomy-based preferred-customer model for suppliers in air cargo express service markets

Drawing on social exchange and push–pull–mooring theories, this paper develops a taxonomy-based preferred-customer model for B2B air express markets. Our model extends the conventional bilateral customer-supplier relationship perspective of customer portfolio management to include competition effects for more comprehensive (trilateral) strategic decision making. Based on this unified framework, our a survey of 180 customers of air cargo express carriers identifies three distinctive groups of preferred customers. In addition to the effect of competitors on air express carriers’ prioritization of customers, which is further complicated by a satisfaction paradox and spurious loyalty, we further establish classification indicators for differentiating preferred from non-preferred customers. Notably, although commonly used in practice, we find sales volumes to be ineffective for that purpose.     

Operational efficiency analysis of Beijing multi-airport terminal airspace

Multi-airport systems are growing in number and size globally, despite being afflicted by known inefficiencies due to the interferences between the flows of neighbouring airports. A macroscopic empirical approach is proposed in this paper to estimate the capacity penalties and demonstrated by a numerical case study for Beijing, which is projected to become one of the busiest metroplexes in Asia. The Pareto envelopes of the theoretical and observed peak hour capacities are statistically analysed to quantify the penalties in a comparable metroplex and are subsequently modulated by a sigmoid correlation function. The analysis predicts the practical capacity of Daxing, the penalty incurred by the pre-existing Capital airport and by the total multi-airport system. Various findings are drawn and discussed, highlighting the needs for further research.     

How did COVID-19 impact air transportation? A first peek through the lens of complex networks

The current outbreak of COVID-19 is an unprecedented event in air transportation. This is probably the first time that global aviation contributed to the planet-wide spread of a pandemic, with casualties in over two hundred countries. As of August 23rd, 2020, the number of infected cases has topped 23 million, reportedly relating to more than 800,000 deaths worldwide. However, there is also a second side of the pandemic: it has led to an unmatched singularity in the global air transportation system. In what could be considered a highly uncoordinated, almost chaotic manner, countries have closed their borders, and people are reluctant/unable to travel due to country-specific lock-down measures. Accordingly, aviation is one of the industries that has been suffering most due to the consequences of the pandemic outbreak, despite probably being one of its largest initial drivers. In this study, we investigate the impact of COVID-19 on global air transportation at different scales, ranging from worldwide airport networks where airports are nodes and links between airports exist when direct flights exist, to international country networks where countries are contracted as nodes, and to domestic airport networks for representative countries/regions. We focus on the spatial-temporal evolutionary dynamics of COVID-19 in air transportation networks. Our study provides a comprehensive empirical analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on aviation from a complex system perspective using network science tools.     

Cost savings from trajectory deviations in the European air space

Air transport deregulation has lead to an increase of air traffic, together with a reduction of air fares. Air fare reduction has narrowed operational margins of airlines, bringing financial and employment instability. This has brought airlines to pay increasing attention to flying costs reduction. Two important components of flying costs airlines can try to cut modifying the planned flight are en route charges and operational costs. We rely on Demand Data Repository (DDR2) data to calculate deviations from planned flight trajectories to analyse the extent to what airlines try to cut operational costs making shorter flights than planned if possible, and cut en route charges providing a planned flight with lower en route charges than the planned flight. Our findings show that there is no generalised strategy among airlines to reduce en-route charges asking for deviations of the planned route. On the other hand, airlines are achieving savings of operational costs regularly. Higher savings per nautical mile are obtained in night flights, with longer planned distance and operated by low cost carriers.     

HF／VHF／UHF航空数据传输链路规约综述

描述了国外６种典型的ＨＦ／ＶＨＦ／ＵＨＦ航空数据传输链,并结合我国航空通信的现状提出一些建议。     

Local environmental quality and life-satisfaction in Germany

Hitherto the task of valuing differences in environmental quality arising from air pollution and noise nuisance has been carried out mainly by using the hedonic price technique. This paper proposes a different approach to derive information on individual preferences for local environmental quality. It analyses data drawn from the German socio-economic panel in an attempt to explain differences in self-reported levels of well-being in terms of environmental quality. Mindful of existing research a large number of other explanatory variables are included to control for socio-demographic differences, economic circumstances as well as neighbourhood characteristics. Differences in local air quality and noise levels are measured by how much an individual feels affected by air pollution or noise exposure in their residential area. The evidence suggests that even when controlling for a range of other factors higher local air pollution and noise levels significantly diminish subjective well-being. But interestingly differences in perceived air and noise pollution are not capitalised into differences in house prices.     

汽车空调高压压力过高的故障与排除

对于有车一族,如果汽车空调制冷系统不正常,是一件令人烦恼的事。当空调有问题时,维修人员往往就是更换膨胀阀和储液干燥器,可是问题还是解决不了、束手无策。空调系统特别是制冷系统看起来虽然简单,其实它的工作过程是非常复杂的;本文通过实例详细分析了影响制冷系统高压过高的原因和判断的方法,希望对汽车空调维修人员在解决实际问题时能有所帮助。     

Different strokes for different folks: A method to accommodate decision -making heterogeneity

Consumer decision making is complex and no single perspective offers a complete theory of consumer decision making. While the research community acknowledges that there is heterogeneity, homogenous choice models dominate consumer decision research. This paper provides insights from one method that was designed to accommodate decision -making heterogeneity. Computer process tracing methods can be used to observe different consumer decisions in one product category to understand what and how people choose. More than two-hundred and fifty decisions were observed in this research. Consumers were asked to select one of nine air conditioner alternatives described with six salient attributes. The research findings clearly reveal consumer differences. Specifically, the attributes and decision types used differed resulting in different product choices. This paper reveals how methods that accommodate decision -making heterogeneity can be used by retailers to inform product ranging decisions for categories.