Air Travel Industry Research Articles

EVALUATION OF THE DEMENTIA FRIENDLINESS OF AIR TRAVEL—A CANADIAN PILOT STUDY

Abstract An earlier initiative involving various stakeholders in the air travel industry, disability advocates, researchers, and individuals living with dementia and their travel partners identified five key areas to reduce the challenges faced by travellers living with cognitive limitations: there was a need for information and awareness on the topic, a discussion on disclosure and identification, a readjustment of processes and spaces, a need for formal training and standardized processes across jurisdictions. Next, focussing on current and planned initiatives for reducing these obstacles, the research team determined what might be available to consumers living with dementia and their families at Canadian airports. This symposium presentation will focus on the design and benefits of a citizen science approach for addressing the identified obstacles and the accessibility of the stated airport initiatives through the lens of passengers with dementia and their travel partners. Moreover, a prototype tool, adapted from the citizen science tool used in other presentations in this symposium, that includes data from the findings of both the stakeholder group and the airport analyses symposium will be presented and discussed in terms of its appropriateness and usefulness to evaluate the dementia-friendliness of air travel.

코로나19 엔데믹시대의 항공여행 위험지각이 태도와 전환의도에 미치는 영향관계 연구

The purpose of this study is to confirm the influence relationship between risk factors and attitudes perceived by air travelers in the endemic situation of COVID-19, and to confirm the relationship between attitude and conversion intention. In addition, this study was conducted to confirm the age-specific difference in conversion intention. As for the hypotheses of this study, first, risk factors will have a negative (-) effect on attitude. Second, attitude will have a positive (+) effect on conversion intention. Third, it was set that there would be a difference in conversion intention according to age.
 In order to verify the hypothesis, prior studies classified the risk factors into four categories: COVID-19-related risk, psychological risk, financial risk, and functional performance risk, and attitude and conversion intention were configured as a single variable. To test the hypothesis, a questionnaire was distributed to travelers planning air travel, and 223 data were used for empirical analysis, excluding questionnaires with errors. Frequency analysis, reliability and exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, and one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA) were conducted.
 As a result of the empirical analysis, hypothesis 1 that risk factors have a negative (-) effect on attitudes was all accepted. Among the risk perception factors perceived by air travelers, the risk of COVID-19 was found to be the highest, and the risk factors related to COVID-19, psychological risk factors, financial risk factors, and functional performance risk factors all showed a negative (-) attitude to attitude. proven to have an effect. Both Hypothesis 2, which states that attitude has a positive (+) effect on conversion intention, and Hypothesis 3, which states that there will be differences in conversion intention according to age, were both accepted.
 Through the results of this study, it was possible to confirm the risk factors of air travelers in the COVID-19 endemic situation, and to confirm the relationship between the influence of each risk factor on attitude and the influence of attitude on conversion intention. In addition, it was verified that there is a difference in conversion intention according to age. In this study, risk perception factors were analyzed based on previous studies, so there are limitations in generalizing risk factors recognized during air travel in the COVID-19 endemic situation. However, the results of this study are meaningful in presenting practical data and academic and practical implications for the recovery of the air travel industry after the COVID-19 endemic.

Understanding How Personal Climate-Conscious Beliefs Influence Air Travel Behavior and Modeling Its Potential Impact on Air Travel Volumes

As concerns about the impacts of travel-related carbon emissions continue to grow, understanding how air travel volumes may change in response to public perceptions, industry actions, or governmental intervention is critical for forecasting impacts on the airline industry. This paper aims to determine: (a) how prevalent personal climate-conscious beliefs are in the United States; (b) whether these beliefs, specifically carbon emission-consciousness, are linked to air travel behavior; and (c) how carbon emissions-focused changes in the airline industry might influence air travel and expenditures. This was achieved by (a) collecting and analyzing a unique U.S. nationally-representative climate-conscious and long-distance travel survey and (b) conducting eight Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate how carbon emissions-focused changes in the airline industry could change air travel and expenditures on a subset of the U.S. population for simulated agents of Georgia, Nebraska, and Washington. This research’s findings suggest that increases in ticket pricing, absence of carbon emission-reducing actions by airlines, and/or increase in public concern for airplane emissions could reduce U.S. air travel volumes. While both work and vacation travel volumes—and associated expenditures—could reduce, vacation volumes could see a greater reduction on average than work travel. Overall, results suggest that carbon emissions concerns may reduce U.S. air travel volumes if certain actions, or inactions, are taken. It is thus suggested that further research be done on the influence of personal climate-conscious beliefs on air travel behavior to better inform the air travel industry, lawmakers, and other decision-makers.

The influence of environmental knowledge on green purchase intention in the air travel industry: The mediating role of green attitude

The influence of environmental knowledge on green purchase intention in the air travel industry: The mediating role of green attitude

The influence of environmental knowledge on green purchase intention in the air travel industry: the mediating role of green attitude

The influence of environmental knowledge on green purchase intention in the air travel industry: the mediating role of green attitude

Flying Towards Extinction: The Role of the Aviation Industry in Perpetuating International Wildlife Trafficking

In the past sixty years, the world has developed significant concern for burgeoning environmental issues. Starting in the 1960s, governments, industries, and the public have embraced efforts to set standards for public and private actors in areas of environmental concern. Particularly, increased globalization has led to an increase in the trade of wildlife and its products, including endangered species. Unregulated wildlife trade implicates various issues, such as conservation concerns, the spread of diseases, and even funding for criminal organizations. While sovereign governments work independently and together to combat wildlife trafficking and its effects, current law leaves significant gaps in the implementation and enforcement of international agreements. Instead, advocates and researchers are turning to the transport sector to fill the loopholes that allow traffickers to exploit the current antiwildlife trafficking conventions. Part I of this Comment details the dangers of wildlife trafficking and why industry leaders should care about adopting policies to combat it. Part II discusses the history of international wildlife law and argues that current law is ineffective and requires more comprehensive enforcement at the international level. Foremost, Part III of this Comment argues that the air-travel industry can and should adopt policies, like standards and regulations, that directly affect wildlife trafficking where current law fails.

Airlines' cooperation in the US domestic market: Measuring the evolution of price gaps

Cooperation agreements among airlines are a widespread phenomenon in the air travel industry. This study focuses on the effect of cooperation on air ticket prices for the US domestic market. Our main goal is to discover how price differentials of allied and codeshared products evolved over the years, based on an empirical model of average fares with market fixed effects with data from 2003 to 2019. Our evidence highlights a gradual change in fare gap patterns over the past two decades. Specifically, cooperation drastically decreased in the US domestic markets between 2009 and 2019. We also show that price differentials between cooperated and noncooperated products depend on the considered period, the level of cooperation, and the type of route, casting doubt on the pricing benefits of cooperation to consumers.

The perceived value of environmental sustainability for consumers in the air travel industry: A choice-based conjoint analysis

By 2050, aviation emissions are forecasted to account for 25% of the global carbon budget. Thus, in addition to airlines’ sustainability efforts, individual consumer action is needed in order to reduce the environmental impact of air travel. The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent consumers value environmental sustainability when selecting flights in terms of the trade-off between cost, time, comfort, and CO2 emissions. Hence, a choice-based conjoint survey was conducted to understand the monetary, temporal, and comfort trade-offs consumers are willing to make for a reduction in CO2 emissions in both short-haul and long-haul flights. The 426 collected responses were analysed using conditional logistic regressions. The results indicate that air travellers are willing to pay more (6.7–21.2 €/100 kg) or travel longer (13–41 minutes/100 kg) to reduce the environmental impact of their trip. Moreover, displaying CO2 emissions as a percentage of an individual’s annual carbon budget increased air travellers’ perceived monetary and temporal value of environmental sustainability, to 11.8–26.3 €/100 kg and 22–65 minutes/100 kg respectively.

Airport digital transformation

Technology systems now play a larger role in the commercial air travel industry than ever before. This is being characterised as ‘digital transformation’, and the options, challenges and issues it presents to airports are, at times, overwhelming. This paper presents a discussion of what digital transformation is and how airports may intelligently and thoughtfully move their operations and systems into a more technologically dynamic and efficient space. It also provides some guidance on the risks and challenges associated with this complex issue.

Toward the Post-COVID-19 Normalcy in the Air-Travel Industry: The GPS Model for Crisis Navigation

The Covid-19 pandemic was a sudden event that had a devastating effect on various sectors of the world economy, especially the travel industry. Prior crisis response research has focused on survival and adaptation efforts of organizations, leaving the deployment of more proactive market-shaping strategies unexplored. Drawing on a qualitative case study method, we analyze how a company operating in the air-travel services sector in the UAE responded to the coronavirus disruption. We develop a grounded framework for understanding how air-travel providers can effectively navigate through crisis – the GPS model. The advanced model suggests that in times of disruption, industry players should adopt a number of strategies to (1) Guard against failure, (2) Potentiate innovative change, and (3) Shape the future of air-travel. An outcome of forward-looking shaping strategies that may define the new post-pandemic normal in the air-travel industry constitutes the idea of ‘scattered airports’ with a modified airport architecture.

Service Quality and Passenger Satisfaction in Air Transportation in a Developing Economy: Evidence from Nigeria

This study investigates the quality of service provided for air travel in Nigeria and the level of satisfaction of passengers with the service encountered. It does so by focusing on both the airports and the airlines as service providers. In that way, the study captures much of the effects of the organizational culture, employee behavior, and general norms which influence passenger attitudes. The SERVQUAL model was used in measuring the five dimensions of service. Domestic travel only was studied, with data obtained from well-structured questionnaires to evaluate perception–expectation gaps in airports as well as in airlines. The overall gap score of the Nigerian airports shows an average airport quality of service with a value of 21.8179. This reveals that the perceived service quality is less than passengers’ expectations in Nigerian airport service operations. In the same vein, the gap score of the Nigerian airlines shows an average airline quality-of-service gap with a value of 21.32, which is generally low. This means that the passengers or customers of the airlines during the response period were expecting more service quality from the airlines in the country. The level of service at Nigerian airports needs to be improved so as to encourage passengers to use the airports and as well reduce many queues at baggage collection areas. The air travel industry is currently challenged in a recessed economy resulting in lower service standards, lower patronage, increased missed trips, flight cancellations, passenger complaints, and faltering loyalty. The findings of the study will, therefore, be useful to the managers of airports and airlines, the economic regulator of the aviation industry, and other stakeholders.

Innovation and value creation in the context of aviation: a Systematic Literature Review

Over the last few decades, the aviation industry has produced several innovative solutions that have benefited the air travel industry and many other industrial and service organisations. However, few attempts have been made to map out these innovations and, more importantly, assess how they add value to aviation businesses. This paper aims to address this gap by providing a Systematic Literature Review to analyse themes, content relationships, approaches, and how innovations create value in this sector. We achieve this aim by analysing 57 peer-reviewed academic publications from 1999 to 2018. The thematic and content analysis made it possible to consolidate the findings by developing an overview of the themes and how innovation has supported them. The results identified ten main themes, i.e. airports, services, management, technology, airlines, system, development, market, customers, and processes. Through the content analysis, 114 value-creating innovations were identified, primarily towards ‘efficiency’, ‘convenience, new features and portfolio differentiation’, and ‘sustainable growth and environment'.

Thoughts on the post-pandemic new normal in air travel

The COVID-19 pandemic will compel permanent transformation of the travel industry and its aviation sector. Key disruptors emerging from the pandemic will include: • Behavioural changes of the travelling public; • increased fear of contracting the virus during travel; • continued uncertainty as to when an effective vaccine will be available, if ever; • severe global economic downturn; and • revised procedures to be introduced at airports and onboard aircraft that increase the inconvenience of air travel. While the immediate effects of the pandemic may be temporary, interaction with more strategic factors, such as globalisation and the digital economy, could result in disruption of the air travel sector. Issues addressed in this paper include: • Aviation-industry recovery and changes to the business model; • need for regulatory change; • inherent uncertainty in forecasting; and • impact on airport operations and development. This paper explores the impact of these factors and how they could permanently transform the air travel industry, and how the trends of global digitalisation present a unique opportunity to reinvent the entire aviation sector business model as well as the end-to-end travel experience. To achieve this will require meaningful collaboration of the digital technology and air transport sectors to drive innovation and transformational change in response to this challenge for society.

Air travel in a COVID-19 world: Commercial airline passengers' health concerns and attitudes towards infection prevention and disease control measures.

BackgroundCOVID-19 and its associated travel bans have reduced international passenger traffic by over 80% below 2019 levels. If airlines are to resume flying at commercially sustainable levels, they must work to restore passengers confidence and sense of security. This study examined commercial airline passengers’ health concerns and attitudes towards infection prevention and control measures for travel health and safety in the current COVID-19 global pandemic.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted inviting adult members of 39 frequent flyer groups across three social media platforms to participate in an online survey.ResultsA total of 205 respondents completed the survey. The majority (75.6%) reported feeling ‘somewhat’ to ‘extremely concerned’ about contracting an infectious disease while flying, particularly respiratory-related. Few (9.8%) reported perceiving their health as an ‘essential priority’ for their preferred airline. Most respondents agreed airlines should provide complimentary hand sanitisers (86.8%), sanitary wipes (82.9%) and masks (64.4%) for passengers to use while flying as well as more information about preventing the spread of infections (90.7%), which would make the majority feel safer to fly.ConclusionCOVID-19 has extensively challenged the air travel industry. Passengers have signalled that they expect more from airlines, and that they would actively engage in additional infection prevention and disease control measures while flying. Airlines must ensure passengers about the steps taken to minimize travel-associated risks, and their commitment towards passengers' health and wellbeing, in order to rebuild consumers’ confidence in the recovery of the air travel industry.

A bibliometric analysis of revenue management in airline industry

Air travel industry is among the most and the oldest beneficiaries of the Operations Research tools. The literature in the field of airline revenue management has been steadily growing over four decades. This paper presents a structured literature review of the peer-reviewed publications in the area of Revenue Management in the airline industry. The structured literature review utilizes contemporary tools from the bibliometric analysis of over 350 articles that are extracted. Using the comprehensive tools from bibliometric analysis, we identify emerging research clusters, topological analysis, key research topics, interrelation and collaboration networks and their patterns. A systematic graphical mapping helps marking research publications evaluation over the period explored along with the direction for future research. A multivariate analysis is also carried out on the co-citation matrix for identification of the factors and clusters in the highly cited publications. The findings of this paper also guide to layout a robust strategic plan for future research studies in the field.

Eco-anxiety and the flight shaming movement: implications for tourism

Purpose This paper aims to briefly discuss the flight shaming (flygskam) movement and considers its implications for tourism. Design/methodology/approach The paper synthesises the current thinking on the flight shaming movement and contextualises it for tourism futures. Findings While flygskam is unlikely to become mainstream in the near future, it is imperative that the air travel industry respond more comprehensively to changing attitudes in the market. Originality/value This trends paper addresses a topical debate in the current environmental public discourse, highlighting the negative emotional states (eco-anxiety) associated with concerns about climate change.

Sectorisation of airspace based on balanced workloads

Purpose Given the ever-growing air travel industry, there is an increasing strain on the systems that provide safe flights. Different methods have to be adopted to help to cope with the increasing demand, especially in Southeast Asia. The purpose of this study is to sectorise one existing airspace to better manage sector workloads. Design/methodology/approach Cambodia’s airspace was chosen for this study because it had only one sector and it was quickly approaching its limit. In this paper, after characterising the airspace, it was first bi-partitioned using the spectral clustering algorithm. The weights of the resulting subgraphs were then balanced through a weight-balancing algorithm. Also, a post-processing algorithm established the sector boundary to be drawn. The method was first carried out on one test airspace. Following the successful sectorisation of the test airspace, the actual Cambodian airspace was sectorised. The resulting two new sectors were then calculated to be able to last for approximately five years before they would reach their capacity. Hence, a further sectorisation was carried out. This resulted in four sectors, which were projected to last more than 10 years. Findings The method produced satisfactory results. The methodology presented is proven to be effective in achieving the sectorisation. The workloads of the new sectors obtained are balanced, and the sector boundaries are at least 15 km away from the air routes and nodes. The methodology is also general and can be applied to different scenarios. This means that applications to other airspace in the region are possible, which can further help to increase the safety, efficiency and capacity of the air traffic movement in this region. Originality/value This paper presents one of the approaches for airspace sector designs. The problems are clearly presented with references. The authors discuss the advantages and disadvantages of subdividing airspace and the need to sectorise Cambodia’s airspace, and present a method to solve the sectorisation problem. It is very precious to apply methodologies and algorithms to real cases. The presented method offers significant advantages such as the ease of implementation and efficiency. The problems can easily be solved using standard linear algebra algorithms. Instead of looking at the airspace as a whole, and generating new sector boundaries, our algorithm uses current sector boundaries and bisects them. Moreover, only sectors that require sectorisation would be affected. This algorithm has the advantage of maintaining the current sector boundaries to prevent radical changes to daily operations. The Voronoi diagram used in this work does not generate polygonal cells. It instead calculates the area based on pixels. The advantage of doing this is that it offers higher flexibility. Also, the sector boundary is generated based on straight lines calculated by joining the midpoints of links. This is simple and ensures that sections of the sector boundary are made up of straight, distinct lines. The authors also discuss the problems of the method and presented solutions to them.

Investigation into the Effects of Blade Tip Twist on Noise Reduction for a NACA 0012 Rotor Blade

The advancement of the urban air mobility concept is heavily dependent on the public acceptance of the aircraft vehicles used for air taxis. The importance of the perception of noise by humans is crucial to the passing of legislation and proposals working to implement the new transport system. The investigation into how the noise perception can be reduced is vital to the success of the personal air travel industry. The air taxi design has been geared towards the rotorcraft models. Therefore, the investigation into the rotor blade designs is necessary because, similar to helicopters, the main component in noise generation is the rotors and its blades. The blade-vortex interaction creates noise which humans perceive as the most annoying and disruptive type of noise produced by rotorcraft. The blade-vortex interaction noise is due to the interaction between the advancing blade and the vortexes generated by the tips of the previous rotor blade. This study looks into the effect of tip twist on rotor blades. Understanding how twist in a blade will affect thrust production and noise production will aid in the progress of developing the acceptance of the urban air mobility movement. This investigation is carried out through the use of high-fidelity rotorcraft modeling software developed by Continuum Dynamics Incorporated called the Comprehensive Hierarchical Aeromechanics Rotorcraft Model (CHARM) coupled with the aeroacoustic processing package PSU-WOPWOP to produce sound data files at the wake of the rotor blades. The noise reducing parameter under investigation is the tip twist of the rotor blades. Particularly, interest is on how this change affects the frequency of sound pressure levels. The reduction of this type of noise will aid in determining the design of efficient and safe air taxis that will utilize a system of smaller porting stations as drop off zones, similar, only in concept, to those ride-sharing services.

Mean Service Metrics: Biased Quality Judgment and the Customer-Server Quality Gap

Problem Definition: People often make service quality judgments based on information about the quality of each server even though they care primarily about the quality each customer experiences. When and how do server-level quality metrics differ from customer-experienced ones? Can people properly account for these differences or do they drive human judgment and decision biases? Relevance: Biased judgments about service quality can cause governments to fund programs suboptimally, organizations to promote the wrong employees, and customers to make disappointing purchases. We further our understanding of the role that cognitive biases play in services and how to manage quality information in light of them. Methodology: We use a mathematical model to define the gap between server-level and customer-experienced quality metrics. We use secondary data in the contexts of education and the air travel industry to quantify the customer-server quality gap in practice. We construct a behavioral model to derive hypotheses about how environmental factors impact the direction and magnitude of judgment biases. Controlled laboratory experiments test the hypothesized biases and mitigation techniques. Results: Our empirical study reveals that the two measures differ enough to drive significant differences in the rank order of school majors, teachers, and airports. Our experiments support our main conjecture that judgments and decisions about customer-experienced metrics are biased towards server-level metrics. Consequently, (1) judgments about customer-experienced quality are biased high/low when quality and server size are negatively/positively correlated; (2) judgments about a server's absolute impact on customer experience are biased high/low when a server is smaller/larger than average; and (3) providing customer-experienced quality metrics mitigate these biases. Managerial Implications: Our results help identify when and why service quality metrics are likely to mislead judgments and bias decisions, as well as who is likely to benefit from such biases. The results also guide system designers on how to report metrics when seeking to help support effective decision-making.

Lost opportunity: Fear of flying, airline profits, and the economy

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between fears of flying and U.S. airline load factors to determine if there is a potential impact on corporate profits and the economy. Travelers with a reluctance towards flying represent a potential lost opportunity for airline companies, a source of operating profits, and positive economic impacts. This research examines the psychological reservations towards flying, how avoidance behaviors impact demand and the projected implications. The paper suggests revising conceptual financial considerations to assess whether stakeholders in the commercial U.S. air travel industry should attempt to recoup lost passengers who avoid flying out of fear.