Air Transport Research Research Articles

The air transport research society world conference: A data science-based literature review on the years 2014–2024

The Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) World Conference is one of the major venues for air transport research. The conference covers a wide range of research talks, practice/industrial sessions, and research workshop activities. In this paper, we perform a data-driven analysis of the research abstracts that have been accepted and presented at the conference since 2014. We have grouped the abstracts from the ten annual conferences using t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding to map high-dimensional keyword vectors into a two-dimensional plane for clustering, analysis, and visualization. The major focus of our study concerns three directions. First, we provide a formal description of the actual research presented at the ATRS World Conference series by using methods from natural language processing and machine learning, leading to a data-driven classification consisting of 35 major subject categories. Second, we analyze the origin of main authors/presenters and their background, including their institutions and countries of origin. Third, we perform a network-driven analysis of co-authorships across abstracts to identify the role and importance of key researchers in the community. Finally, we provide an analysis of popular research topics indicated by authors when submitting their abstracts, and a set of major recommendations for future work, based on the insights obtained from our study.

Discrete Choice Model Applications for Air Passenger Airport Choices: A Literature Review

Airport development is a critical factor for regional growth, improving connectivity, and stimulating economic growth. Considering the complexity of planning and policy making in this area, multiple models and frameworks have been introduced to support decision-making processes. Among these, Discrete Choice Models (DCM) stand out for their capacity to project market flows, assess the validity and benefits of implementing airport modifications, tailor policies, improve the operations’ service level, and boost revenues. Given their extensive use and importance, a thorough review of DCM applications within the context of air transportation is both timely and necessary. This review organizes and evaluates the use of DCMs in air transport research. Both descriptive and predictive applications of DCMs are analyzed, focusing on choices related to airports and related levels, such as access mode and airline decisions. Each reviewed study is classified based on the type of model used, application context, data characteristics, employed variables, and methodological contributions. Through this analysis, six prevailing gaps are identified in the current state of DCM application in air transportation: improve data quality, enhance models with detailed trip and passenger information, explore advanced modeling techniques, incorporate general correlation and substitution structures, consider non-compensatory decision-making processes, and extend applications to new geographic and temporal contexts.

Key issues in air transport management research: A bibliometric analysis for the classification of own contributions

Bibliometric analysis is a computer-assisted review methodology to identify core research or authors as well as research trends related to a given topic or field. This paper focuses on managerial and organizational aspects of air transport research. Previous data analysis is used to place own research on air transport management as an application example in a larger framework of existing research structures. Bibliometric analysis can describe research content very comprehensively. However, subject keywords are usually not defined narrowly enough to enable established researchers to refocus their research interests or to provide young scholars with guidance on career-enhancing topic selection. In addition, research trends are identified, but not necessarily gaps in research.

Recent Trends in Air Transport Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

The aim of this manuscript is to detect recent trends in air transport research through a bibliometric analysis. We retrieved all articles published between 2013 and 2022 in the Q1 of the Transportation ranking of the Social Sciences Citation Index published in the Journal Citations Reports (Q1-T), and in the Journal of Air Transport Management. Among these records, we retained for the analysis the articles related to air transport. Analyzing the author keywords of articles and retaining the Top 10 cited articles in each of the samples, we identified six research topics for each of the samples. Both samples share the topics of Industry Analysis, Air Traffic Management and COVID-19 and Air Transport. The specific topics of Q1-T sample are High Speed Rail and Air Transport, Environmental Impact of Air Transport and UAV and Urban Air Mobility. We also found that materials of Q1-T are mainly written from the regulator perspective, and JATM materials from the perspective of airport and airline managers. We believe that these results are useful for administrators evaluating air transport academics, and air transport academics themselves looking for new avenues of research and stakeholders of the air transport industry interested in evidence-based decision making.

An overview of network structures and node importance in the global aviation system from the year 2011 to 2022

The aviation system is an essential constituent for human mobility in the 21st century. Accordingly, better understanding the underlying - possibly hidden - characteristics is one of the key challenges in air transport research. Network science has developed into a key domain for analyzing complex, inter-connected systems, with many studies having used network science techniques to dissect the universal patterns by the abstraction into a network-like structure. After more than two decades of aviation network analysis - the earliest influential papers date back to the early 2000s, providing a synopsis of the existing techniques and assessing the relevant characteristics on the global aviation system is judicious and helpful for the entire air transport community. In this study, we make three major contributions. First, we review the existing literature on complex network analysis of aviation system, having appeared in the past two decades, identifying key trends in the analysis and their results. Second, we provide a data-driven, network science-based analysis of the global aviation system and two of its variants for period from 2011 to 2022, leading to one of the most comprehensive studies in the literature. At the core of our analysis is the task of identifying node importance and answering the question how well complex network-based methods help to reveal the critical nodes in the system. Third, we derive a set of relevant research directions which we deem instrumental for advancing our understanding of global aviation and its subsystems through the lens of network science. We believe that our study provides a unique combination of biographical synopsis and data-driven analysis for the evolution of our global aviation system.

KINERJA PEGAWAI TRANSPORTASI UDARA BADAN PENELITIAN DAN PENGEMBANGAN PERHUBUNGAN DIPENGARUHI OLEH KEPEMIMPINAN MELALUI DISIPLIN KERJA

This study aims to determine the performance of employees in the air transportation of the Research and Development Agency for Transportation is influenced by leadership through work discipline. This study was conducted using the quantitative method by distributing questionnaires to air transportation employees Research and Development Agency. In this study the researcher used the saturated sample method where the sample used was all 46 employees of the population. For the analysis method the researcher uses a path analysis test (path analysis). The results showed that leadership had a positive and significant effect on employee performance. Work discipline has a positive and significant effect on employee performance. Leadership has a positive and significant effect on work discipline. And leadership influences employee performance through work discipline in air transportation research and transportation development agencies

Corruption and airport efficiency: A study on Asian airports

This paper evaluates the relationship between corruption and operational efficiency of airports in Asia, by analyzing a panel dataset of 26 Asian airports over the 2003–2019 period. Our estimation results for Asia confirm the findings for other regions that there exists a negative association between the operational efficiencies of airports and the corruption level in the country. Airports owned, operated and/or managed by government corporations (100% government) are the most affected, in that they experience significant loss of efficiency when located in a high corruption country. The residual variable factor productivity (RVFP) from the Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) airport benchmarking reports is used as measure of airport operational efficiency. Regression analyses are applied to evaluate the relationship between airport efficiency and corruption. The results are robust to alternative corruption indexes. The findings of this paper have important policy implications for the management of large public infrastructure projects and airport governance reforms in Asia.

OpenAP.top: Open Flight Trajectory Optimization for Air Transport and Sustainability Research

Trajectory optimization has been an active area of research for air transport studies for several decades. But almost all flight optimizers proposed in the literature remain close-sourced, which presents a major disadvantage for the advancement of scientific research. This optimization depends on aircraft performance models, emission models, and operational constraints. In this paper, I present a fully open trajectory optimizer, OpenAP.top, which offers researchers easy access to the complex but efficient non-linear optimal control approach. Full flights can be generated without specifying flight phases, and specific flight segments can also be independently created. The optimizer adapts to meteorological conditions and includes conventional fuel and cost index objectives. Based on global warming and temperature potentials, its climate objectives form the basis for climate optimal air transport studies. The optimizer’s performance and uncertainties under different factors like varying mass, cost index, and wind conditions are analyzed. Overall, this new optimizer brings a high performance for optimal trajectory generations by providing four-dimensional and wind-enabled full-phase optimal trajectories in a few seconds.

A literature review and citation analyses of air travel demand studies published between 2010 and 2020

Accurate forecasting of air travel demand is vital for the resource planning of the air transportation industry. Therefore, identifying contributing factors and understanding the effect of these factors in causing the variation of air travel demand have been one of the key focus areas in air transportation research. This article reviews 87 air travel demand studies published from 2010 to 2020 and summarizes these studies using their input data and primary analytical methods. We also devise and conduct three citation analyses to further explore the relationships among the reviewed studies. Our review finds that a typical empirical study of air travel demand analysis would focus on the demand at the national level, employ time-series data concerning socio-economic and airline operational factors and use time-series based methods to estimate the relationship among the selected time-series. These studies are mostly applying existing analytical frameworks to specific problems rather than developing original methods, therefore their relationship to each other is parallel rather than sequential. A small number of references are frequently cited by the reviewed studies primarily because of their methodological contribution to time-series analysis. A common limitation of existing literature is that very few reviewed studies provide validation of their analyses. In addition, methods that are not regression or time-series based have very limited application in this area so far, so are the non-convention data such as mobility data or social media data. Besides providing a systematic summary of recent publications in a specific field, this review uses a relatively objective and replicable framework to compare and link studies by their references, which can be visualized by the figures included in this review. This review is expected to benefit future researchers that are interested in either air transportation or the application of time-series forecasting in an applied domain.

Robustness of Air Transportation as Complex Networks:Systematic Review of 15 Years of Research and Outlook into the Future

Air transportation systems are an important part of the critical infrastructure in our connected world. Accordingly, a better understanding and improvements in the resilience of the overall air transportation system are essential to the well-functioning of our society and overall sustainability of human beings. In the literature, network science is increasingly used to better understand the resilience dynamics of air transportation. Given the wide application of tools for network science and the importance of designing resilient air transportation systems, a rich body of studies has emerged in recent years. This review paper synthesizes the related literature that has been published throughout the last 15 years regarding the robustness of air transportation systems. The contributions of this work consist of two major elements. The first part provides a comprehensive discussion and cross-comparison of the reported results. We cover several major topics, including node importance identification, failure versus attack profiles, recovery and improvement techniques, and networks of networks approaches. The second part of this paper complements the review of aggregated findings by elaborating on a future agenda for robust air transportation research. Our survey-style overview hopefully contributes toward a better understanding of the state of the art in this research area, and, in turn, to the improvement of future air transportation resilience and sustainability.

Impact of Non-Aeronautical Revenues on Airport Landing Charge in Global Airports

The airport industry, which is heavily regulated, has shown interest in improving performance by increasing non-aeronautical revenues (NAR) to cope with changes in the aviation environment, including trends toward liberalization and privatization. This study uses panel data from three separate years (2012, 2014, and 2016) to analyze how a high NAR share might affect airport charging policies and explores the impact of NAR on landing charges of global airports grouped by type of aircraft. The data was collected from 137 airports worldwide, and generalized least squares regression was performed by including data obtained from the ATRS (Air Transport Research Society) Global Airport Benchmarking Reports. The results indicate that an increase in the NAR share has a statistically significant negative effect on airport charges. This study provides meaningful implications from an empirical analysis of how a change in an airport’s business model, such as increasing the NAR share, might affect airport charges. This study’s results are expected to encourage international airports to be more active in promoting commercial activities (e.g., duty-free shops) and pursue a pricing policy that can bring them a competitive advantage.

Examining legal requirements for a ground infrastructure at airfields as part of an automated, emission-free airfreight transport chain

As traffic volume has been increasing in Germany due to passenger and freight transport growth, time critical delivery services are facing new challenges. A possible solution arises from the technical progress in air transport research within the last years enabling the use of automated, light aircraft, which can operate in a more flexible manner and do not produce air pollutants. In order to establish an innovative airfreight chain, airfields have to meet the applying infrastructural requirements. The aim of this work is therefore to identify an according legal framework. We examined existing, progressing and missing regulations in order to assess the technical feasibility and point out further demand for legal assurance. The investigation shows that most applying regulations are technically feasible for the proposed airfreight transport, but a regulatory framework is not yet clarified for drone aerodrome design as well as unmanned aircraft systems operations at aerodromes.

ПОВІТРЯНИЙ ТРАНСПОРТ ЯК ОБ'ЄКТ СУСПІЛЬНО-ГЕОГРАФІЧНОГО ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ

The purpose of the study is to consider the socio-geographical principles of air transport research, to determine the role of air transport geography in the system of geographical science, to define the object and subject of air transport geography, to determine the indicators of socio-geographical analysis of air transport. Method. Transport development has led to scientists' collaboration in different specialties for studying this phenomenon that enables to determine the interdisciplinary nature of this research, as transport is studied by a number of scientific disciplines, such as economic, environmental, technical sciences, logistics, and, specifically, geography. The multidimensional nature of transport as a social and economic phenomenon has determined a problem-based approach to its scientific and applied research. In this case, in contrast to other disciplines, geography is primarily interested in the transport spatial dimension, namely the spatial features of transport interaction with the territory, nature, population and economy. Air transport geography is an important component of transport geography. Results. Air transport geography should be defined as a scientific unit of transport geography, which studies the territorial structure of air transport, transport corridors, patterns and features of location, the level of transportation of countries and groups of countries. Air transport geography is an important component of transport geography, its scientific unit, with a specific object and subject of research, the main directions and indicators for socio-geographical analysis of world and national air transport. The indicators for such analysis are the following: geography of air corridors and network of air transport routes; world airport network; main aviation passenger flows and their dynamics; passenger traffic in comparison with other means of transport and their dynamics in recent years. Scientific novelty. Improving the theoretical, methodological and methodical apparatus of transport geography in general (improving the classification of means of transport) and its component - air transport geography in particular, expanding their subject and object sphere and conducting applied research on an updated basis. Practical value. The main practical value of research on air transport geography is considered the development of plans and recommendations for improving the location of production and resettlement in terms of minimizing transport costs, optimizing air traffic flows within existing territorial transport systems, development of air transport systems at all levels.

OpenAP: An Open-Source Aircraft Performance Model for Air Transportation Studies and Simulations

Air traffic simulations serve as common practice to evaluate different concepts and methods for air transportation studies. The aircraft performance model is a key element that supports these simulation-based studies. It is also an important component for simulation-independent studies, such as air traffic optimization and prediction studies. Commonly, contemporary studies have to rely on proprietary aircraft performance models that restrict the redistribution of the data and code. To promote openness and research comparability, an alternative open performance model would be beneficial for the air transportation research community. In this paper, we introduce an open aircraft performance model (OpenAP). It is an open-source model that is based on a number of our previous studies, which were focused on different components of the aircraft performance. The unique characteristic of OpenAP is that it was built upon open aircraft surveillance data and open literature models. The model is composed of four main components, including aircraft and engine properties, kinematic performances, dynamic performances, and utility libraries. Alongside the performance model, we are publishing an open-source toolkit to facilitate the use of this model. The main objective of this paper is to describe each main component, their connections, and how they can be used for simulation and research in practice. Finally, we analyzed the performance of OpenAP by comparing it with an existing performance model and sample flight data.

Applications of gravity models to evaluate and forecast US international air freight markets post-GFC

In addition to being the world's largest economy, the United States (US) has been the foremost driver of consumer spending, free trade and open skies policies. Trade-driven economic growth and air freight markets have been commonly linked in air transport research. Despite increased security after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, international air imports to the US has continued to grow at a rate faster than consumer spending.This paper aims to evaluate whether gravity models are robust enough to forecast and accurately account for substantial economic shocks such as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Our research suggests that US demand for air freight is highly sensitive to transport costs, competition from sea freight and consumer spending patterns of perishable, low value and high value commodities across the 19 commodity groups examined, rather than manufacturing income or factors associated with product origin, which is all the more interesting in the context of the recent protectionist rhetoric of the US administration.

Air transport research: The next 25 years

Air transport research: The next 25 years

Using Epidemiology and Pediatric Direction to Inform Air Medical Quality Improvement

IntroductionPediatric air transport research is limited, especially scene transport. Study purpose was to review transport epidemiology, outcomes, and documentation to inform development of a pediatric flight quality improvement (QI) program and outreach. MethodsStudy design was ongoing review and analysis of flight, ED, EMS and hospital records over 2 years from children ≤ 18 years transported by a regional flight program. Mission type included trauma, medical, scene and interfacility. Records were reviewed monthly by a pediatric medical director (PMD) with ongoing QI and educational initiatives. Peer review was added in year two. Demographic and outcome variables included weight, times, procedures, pain scales, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), medications, disposition, etc. Two QI focus areas were studied using QI Macros®: weight and pain documentation. ResultsChildren accounted for 8% of total flights (165/2076). Transport was 58% scene; 42% interfacility. Median dispatch to arrival time was 21 minutes. Saturday accounted for 24% of flights. Mean scene GCS was 12; 39 (24%) patients were intubated. Scene weight in kilograms improved 18% and pain documentation improved from 49% to 79% during the study. ConclusionAddition of PMD, peer and outcome review processes provided opportunities for improving pediatric transport QI initiatives and targeted outreach education.

PyModeS: Decoding Mode-S Surveillance Data for Open Air Transportation Research

The availability of low-cost automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) receivers has given researchers the ability to make use of large amounts of aircraft state data. This data is being used to support air transportation research in performance study, trajectory prediction, procedure analysis, and airspace design. However, aircraft states contained in ADS-B messages are limited. More performance parameters are downlinked as Mode-S Comm-B replies, upon the automatic and periodic interrogation of air traffic control secondary surveillance radar. These replies reveal aircraft airspeed, turn rate, target altitude, and so on. They can be intercepted using the same 1090-MHz receiver that receives the ADS-B messages. However, a third-party observer does not know the interrogations, which originated the Comm-B replies. Thus, it is difficult to decode these messages without knowing the type and source aircraft. Furthermore, the parity check also cannot be performed without knowing the interrogations. In this paper, we propose a new heuristic-probabilistic method to decode the Comm-B replies and to check the correctness of the messages. Based on a reference dataset provided by air traffic control of the Netherlands, the method yields a success rate of 97.68% with an error below 0.01%. The performance of the proposed method is further examined with data from eight different regions of the world. The implementation of the inference and decoding process, pyModeS , is shared as an open-source library.

Assembling aeromobilities of diplomacy: A case study of the Finnish Foreign Service

This paper highlights the need to expand research on air transport regulation from the institutional to the everyday scale of analysis. Employing the Finnish Foreign Service as an example, it demonstrates how an assemblage approach to diplomatic aeromobility, as a fact of diplomatic working life and an item in geopolitical representations, can open up new angles on and directions for air transport and diplomacy research. Without trying to authoritatively delimit the concept, the article examines how the aeromobilities of diplomacy form overlapping, emerging, and mutually constituting networks at multiple scales, from the micro geographies of the airplane cabin and the geographies of the neoliberal state to the macro geographies of international air transport networks. It demonstrates how diplomats as both co-producers and end users of international air transport networks fill the space onboard a network carrier with a unique mobile working culture, co-produce mutually reinforcing representations with the flag carrier, and bring credibility to air service agreement negotiations. The paper suggests that further research on other geopolitical contexts and components of diplomatic aeromobility is needed.

THE 21ST AIR TRANSPORT RESEARCH SOCIETY CONFERENCE

The Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) was launched as a special interest group of the World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTR) during the 7th Triennial WCTR Conference at Sydney in 1995. Headquartered at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, ATRS is a platform for exchanging research ideas and results and facilitating multi-national and/ or multi- disciplinary research collaborations. Professor Tae Oum is the ATRS Founder and Chair and Professor Martin Dresner is the President and CEO. ATRS has its networking committee consisting of representatives around the group including researchers, economists, consultants and professionals. Since 2001, ATRS has been producing on a yearly basis a Global Airport Benchmarking Report. The report provides over 30 performance metrics for measuring and assessing effects of the operating environment and service quality of the airport, and airport management strategies such as business diversification, outsourcing, etc. Initiated at the University of British Columbia, the annual Global Airport Performance Benchmarking project is currently hosted at the David B. O’Maley College of Business at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. A task force, led by Professor Chunyan Yu, and consisting of 16 leading researchers from Asia Pacific, Europe and North America guides the development of the annual report released every summer. More than 200 airports and 20 airport groups are covered and benchmarked among peer airports worldwide and within the three regions currently including North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific & Oceania. With the objective of providing the most comprehensive and unbiased comparison of airports performance regarding productivity and efficiency, financial performance, unit cost competitiveness, and airport charges, the report currently consists of three parts. The first part provides a summary of the research methodology and main findings. The second part, which is the main body of the report, provides comparative assessments of airport performance and characteristics such as traffic volume, number of employees, terminal-airside capacity, and airport charges. The last part of the report presents a short profile of each airport, its new development and recent awards.