The break-up of BAA and the blocked takeover of Bratislava airport by the competing Vienna airport have brought the issue of airport competition to the top of the agenda for air transport policy in Europe. Airport Competition reviews the current state of the debate and asks whether airport competition is strong enough to effectively limit market power. It provides evidence on how travellers chose an airport, thereby altering its competitive position, and on how airports compete in different regions and markets. The book also discusses the main policy implications of mergers and subsidies.

As both an enabler and accelerator of globalisation, aviation has had profound and sometime unintended and unanticipated social and economic impacts. Commercial airports are not only transport nodes that facilitate aerial movement they are also major centres of employment but often sites of political contestation surrounding their planning and development as economic growth imperatives conflict with environmental concerns. Noise is often cited as being one of the most socially contested aspects of airport operations for local communities, particularly when flights are operating during the night. This is a particular challenge for cargo operators whose business model is based on rapid overnight delivery and distribution. Specific factors including night noise curfews and the provision and co-location of freight forwarders are significant determinants of airport choice and this, in turn, leads to freight forwarding firms clustering at major freight facilities. As well as meeting the mobility needs of business travellers and cargo consignors, air travel also facilitates the mass movement of leisure passengers. The benefits, challenges and limits to growth of this market segment are explored together with the social, economic and environmental challenges tourism creates for receiving countries. The role of airlines in planning, developing and marketing tourist destinations is also examined in this Volume. Aviation-led tourist development is particularly pronounced in cities such as Singapore and Dubai where air service deregulation and airport-airline-destination marketing strategies have created not only major international transit hubs but also significant centres of international urban tourism. In addition to serving routes with high levels of passenger and cargo demand, aviation also performs a vital role for geographically remote and/or inaccessible regions that cannot be rapidly accessed by road, sea or rail. Owing to lower levels of demand, the need for small (and sometimes specially equipped aircraft) and the vagaries of the local weather and climate, these services are expensive to operate and may not be economically viable without subsidy. Experiences from the US and European Union examine some of the issues surrounding the operation of these services. The Volume concludes with consideration of aviation's environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies such as the EU's Emissions Trading System.

This book gives an overview of the main aspects of the potential development of regional airports particularly the economic aspects, the role of low-cost companies, demand modelling, the airport, airline and access mode choices, and the relationships between capacity constraints on hubs and the growth of regional airports.

This volume examines the role that airports play in economic development and land values, the regulation and economic efficiency of airports, airport pricing and competition, and the role played by airports in influencing airline operations and networks.

This book is one of three inter-connected books related to a four-year European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action established in 2015. The Action, called Air Transport and Regional Development (ATARD), aimed to promote a better understanding of how the air transport related problems of core regions and remote regions should be addressed in order to enhance both economic competitiveness and social cohesion in Europe. This book focuses on case studies in Europe related to air transport and regional development. It is divided into four geographical regions after a general chapter that compares regional air transport connectivity between remote and central areas in Europe. The first region is Northern and Western Northern Europe (case studies related specifically to Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, and Ireland); the second is Central and Eastern Europe, (Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Poland); the third is Central Western Europe (Belgium and Switzerland); and finally, the fourth is Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, and Italy). There is no other single source publication that currently covers this topic area in such a comprehensive manner by considering so many countries. The book aims at becoming a major reference on the topic, drawing from experienced researchers in the field, covering the diverse experience and knowledge of the members of the COST Action. The book will appeal to academics, practitioners, and policymakers who have a particular interest in acquiring detailed comparative knowledge and understanding of air transport and regional development in many different European countries. Together with the other two books (Air Transport and Regional Development Methodologies and Air Transport and Regional Development Policies), it fills a much-needed gap in the literature.

In 1938 the U.S. Government took under its wing an infant airline industry. Government agencies assumed responsibility not only for airline safety but for setting fares and determining how individual markets would be served. Forty years later, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 set in motion the economic deregulation of the industry and opened it to market competition. This study by Steven Morrison and Clifford Winston analyzes the effects of deregulation on both travelers and the airline industry. The authors find that lower fares and better service have netted travelers some $6 billion in annual benefits, while airline earnings have increased by $2.5 billion a year. Morrison and Winston expect still greater benefits once the industry has had time to adjust its capital structure to the unregulated marketplace, and they recommend specific public polices to ensure healthy competition.