Aisling Reynolds-Feighan (p)

This paper explores the changing nature of air service provision to small, medium and large communities in Europe, using OAG datasets from 1996-2016. The trends in air transport activities are examined for the European air transport market and the air traffic data are linked to urban population datasets. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hub classification scheme is adapted and applied to Europe in order to compare and contrast the distribution of air traffic across communities of different sizes. The extent of ‘route churn’ is examined over the analysis period and measured for the categories of community. Metrics of traffic seasonality are also presented. Small and medium-sized air transport communities are shown to be more vulnerable to service reduction and loss during down-cycle periods. Air transport liberalisation in Europe has resulted in substantial growth in the range and number of air services to small- and medium-sized communities, but often with low frequency and strong seasonality. The role of social air service provision is examined in the context of these changing trends: a series of stylized facts are set out before some general conclusions are drawn.

Zhenhua Chen, Kingsley Haynes (p)

This paper investigates a fundamental question related to the massive railway infrastructure development in China. What is the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) on regional economic disparity? The question is investigated from three perspectives. First, the influence of HSR on regional economic disparity is discussed theoretically from the perspective of the New Economic Geography. Second, the variation in economic disparity at both the national and regional levels is investigated using three indexes: the weighted coefficient of variation, the Theil index and the Gini index. Third, the linkages between regional economic growth and HSR is measured empirically from a quantitative and qualitative perspective using an endogenous growth modelling framework with panel data covering the period 2000 – 2014. The rail network density is adopted as a proxy to reflect the quantity change in rail investment. Three accessibility indicators (weighted average travel time, potential accessibility and daily accessibility) are introduced to capture the improvement of HSR transport quality. Our findings confirm that regional economic disparity has been decreased since the development of HSR. HSR has promoted regional economic convergence in China. Specifically, the stimulus effect from improved HSR accessibility on regional economic growth is found to be more significant in regions such as the Middle Reaches of Yangtze River, the Southwest and the South of China.

Jonas Westin (p), Disa Asplund

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Francisco Carballo-Cruz (p), Rosa-Branca Esteves

In recent years the level of competition among low cost and full cost carriers has considerably increased, namely in certain O/D pairs. The decrease in full cost carriers’ prices and the improve in low cost carriers’ service quality have intensified even more competition levels, forcing some operators to abandon some of the more competitive routes. This paper develops a theoretical competition model between heterogeneous airlines. The theoretical exercise is based on a Hotelling model within an oligopolistic framework. The heterogeneity between carriers is modelled on a spatial dimension (airport location) and on a service level dimension. The aim of this paper is to derive the Nash Equilibrium prices and how model parameters affect market shares, prices and profits. We also aim to extent the static model to a dynamic setting as a way to investigate whether one of the carriers has strategic incentives to expel the other one from the route.