پنجشنبه ۲۲ شهریور ۰۳ | ۲۱:۱۸ ۷ بازديد
Ownership of airports may be in State hands, under the control of local authorities,
or in private ownerships (Holloway, 1996). In India, majority of the airports are
controlled by Airports Authority of India, a governmental agency. It was set up in
1995 by merging the International Airports Authority of India and the National
Airports Authority. Currently, AAI manages 126 airports which includes 11
international, 89 domestic and 26 civilian enclaves at Defense airfields. In some
cases, as in many German airports, local and state Governments share the
responsibility. In Britain many regional airports are in the hands of local authority,
while seven of the major international airports are owned and operated by BAA, a
private corporation formed by denationalization of the former state runs British
Airports Authority. Private participation is incorporated in India also, in
developing and maintaining airports.
Table 5.3
World’s Busiest Airports
Sl. No Airports Total Passengers
1 O’Hare, Chicago 59,963,137
2 Dallas/Fort Worth 48,515,464
3 Hartsfield, Atlanta 48,024,566
4 Los Angels 45,810,221
5 Heathrow, London 42,964,200
6 Haneda, Tokyo 40,233,031
7 San Francisco 31,059,820
8 JFK, New York 29,786,657
9 Frankfurt 28,912,145
10 Stapleton, Denver 27,432,989
Source: (Lundberg and Lundberg, 1993)
The major airports in terms of passenger transports are given in table 5.3. In
Europe, Heathrow and Gatwick of London are very busy airports. For continental
Europe, Frankfurt, Germany, serves the most passengers as an international flight
hub. Paris, Amsterdam, and Zurich also have large international airports serving
all of Europe. In Japan, Tokyo and Osaka are the hubs for East Asia. In the US,
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the major international airports are in New York (Kennedy), Chicago (O’Hare),
Atlanta (Harsfield), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Dallas/Fort Worth.
(Lundberg and Lundberg, 1993).
5.3.3 Navigation and Air Traffic Control:
The technical services, which are provided on the ground to assist and control
aircraft while in the air and in landing or taking off, have a key role in the
operation of aviation services. Air Traffic Control (ATC) has the function of
guiding air craft into and out of airports, giving pilots, in the form of continually
updated automatic recordings, detailed information on ground conditions, flight
directions, height of flight, climate details, runways in use, and the state of
navigation aids.
5.3.4 Airlines:
Airlines provide various types of air based transportation services. They are
basically businesses that run regular/occasional services for carrying passengers
and goods by air using aircrafts. Both private as well as state owned agencies run
airlines. National carriers are the airlines operated under the governmental
authorities, directly or indirectly. Majority of the airlines in the world are private
owned. USA is the most important country in the case of air transportation,
followed by European Countries. Some European airlines, such as SAS in
Scandinavia, are partly State-owned, but in the UK, all airlines are now in the
private sector, since British Airways was privatized in 1987 (Holloway, 1996). The
table 5.4 lists the major international and domestic airlines of 1990s.
Airlines operate different types of services like scheduled, non-scheduled and air
taxis. A brief account of each of them is following.
Scheduled Services:
Scheduled services operate on pre-defined routes, domestic or international, for
which licenses shave been granted by the government or other authorities
concerned. Operations are based on a published schedule of flights. The airlines
are required to operate on the basis of their published timetables, regardless of
passenger load factors. The public airline is recognized as the national flag-carrier.
Table 5.4
Top Ten Airlines in the World (of 1990s)
International Domestic
British Airways
United Airlines
Lufthansa
Japan Airways
American Airlines
Singapore Airlines
Air France
KLM
North West
Delta Airlines
American Airlines
United Airlines
Delta Airlines
US Air
North West
Continental
TWA
All Nippon Airways
America West
Japan Airways
Source: International Air Transport Association (IATA)
Charter services:
Charter services represent the air service that does not operate on regular schedule.
They are also called supplemental airlines and they provide non-scheduled airline
services. The flights are chartered as fully paid in by a tour operator or other
middlemen for a fixed charge. The responsibility of the airline is to operate the
aircraft. Selling of seats and other responsibilities are vested with middlemen.
Sometimes major airlines charter aircrafts to handle passenger overload. British
Airways operates a charter service under the Caledonian brand, and in 1992 took
over Dan-Air, a joint charter and scheduled service operator. Lufthansa operates
charter subsidiary Condor (Holloway, 1996).
Air Taxis:
Air taxis, used particularly by business travellers, are privately chartered aircraft
accommodating between four and 18 people. Air taxis have advantages like
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convenience and flexibility; routings can be tailor-made for passengers; and small
airfields close to a company’s office or factory can be used. In Britain alone there
are around 350 airfields suitable for air taxis. A range of aircrafts used include
from helicopters seating three to four people, up to Embraer Bandeirantes that are
capable of carrying 18 passengers.
Commuter Airlines:
These are the airlines that operate on short routes mainly to connect airports in
smaller towns/cities to larger or ‘hub’ airports. Commuter airlines usually enter
into special partnership agreements with major airlines, called Code Share
agreement. By this, smaller airlines can share the name and code of larger airlines.
5.4 Air Transport: Regulation, Deregulation and Strategies:
International air transportation requires complex negotiations and agreements
among nations and carriers. Over flight privileges must be obtained for all
countries that will be crossed as transitional flights. The enormous growth of
aviation technology, especially since the development of the jet airliner after the
Second World War, has made it necessary to have agreements, control and
cooperation in the international air transport scenario for healthy progress of air
transport.
Further, there were some technical reasons to be solved in the ever expanding air
transport and burgeoning competition. A number of summits and conventions were
held for evolving strategies and measures aiming at future. The Warsaw
Convention held in 1929 first established common agreement on the extent of
liability of the airlines in the event of death or injury of passengers, or loss of
passenger baggage. Then at the Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation held in
1944, the government representatives decided to promote world air services and
reached an agreement on standard operating procedures for air services between
countries. The convention set five ‘freedoms of air’ which are the privileges that
are fundamental to air transport in the world. The privileges are as follows
(Holloway, 1996):
flying across a country without landing;
off-loading passengers, mail or freight from an airline of the country from
which those passengers, mail or freight originated;
landing in a country for purposes other than the carriage of passengers or
freight, e.g., in order to refuel;
loading passengers, mail or freight on an airline of the country to which those
passengers; mail or freight are destined; and
loading passengers, mail or freight on an airline not belonging to the country
to which those passengers, mail or freight are destined, and off-loading
passengers, mail or freight from an airline not of the country from which these
originated.
Two more important privileges were established later similar to the above, but
concerned with movement of cargo. A number of strategies and measures were
evolved during the last four decades to beat competition. The introduction of net
inclusive tour basing fares for tour operators, variable pricing techniques such as
Advance Purchase Excursion (APEX) tickets and stand-by fares, and more recently
‘frequent flyer’ programmes, in which passengers collect additional free miles
based on the mileage they chalk up with a carrier, have all helped to stimulate
demand and fill air craft seats.
“Open Sky Policy”, which refers to unrestricted access by carriers into the
sovereign air territory of a country, was an important policy change that happened
in the western countries. It resulted in emergence of new airlines and in increased
competition. Instead of a simple three-tier structure, which includes economy,
coach, and first class, there are multiple prices and airlines change these prices
hundreds of thousands of times each day to meet customer needs, maximize load
factors, and increase revenues through their yield management systems (Cook,
et.al., 2002).
5.4.1 Hub and Spoke System:
To overcome the increasing passenger pressures, and to increase flights to all cities
without increasing fares, airlines have introduced “Hub and Spoke System”.
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(Foster LD, 1994). Hub and Spoke system is an operational arrangement by
airlines by which the passengers are transported to an intermediated point, called,
‘hub’, to board planes to their final destination. Here a hub and spoke refers to a
bicycle wheel. Hub symbolically refers to a major city from where passenger can
board in flights to various destinations. Each spoke represents one route from hub
to one of the destinations. For example, if one wishes to travel from Bombay to
Cape Town in South Africa in British Airways, it may not have direct flight (point-
to-point) from Bombay to Cape City. In this case, the passenger will be boarded in
an aircraft to London first and from there he can board another flight to Cape
Town. From London, similar services will be offered to many destinations situated
in different parts of the world. For making this successful, many airlines have
entered into cooperative contracts, called ‘inter-line agreements’ that enables
passengers to travel on a connection involving different carriers while paying a
single point-to point fare, called joint fare.
Code sharing:
Code sharing is another strategy followed by airlines world over. ‘International
airlines penetrate markets by using code-sharing agreements, a form of market
sharing by which two or more airlines share a flight by using a single airline code,
although segments of the flight are flown separately (Lundberg and Lundberg,
1993). Regional/commuter airlines on spoke routes typically operate on a code
share basis. In a code share agreement, a regional/commuter airline will share the
same two-letter identification code of a major airline in the computer reservation
system and typically point its planes in the same color. British Airways offers a
flight from Seattle to London via Chicago, but United Airlines flies the Seattle to
Chicago segment and only the final leg, Chicago to London, is flown by British
Airways.
Table 5.5
Major Carriers and Hub Cities
Carrier Hub Cities
Air Canada Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver
American Airlines Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, San Juan, Nashville,
Raleigh/Durham, Miami
America West Phoenix, Las Vegas
British Airways Heathrow (London), Gatwick
Continental Airlines Houston, Denver, Newark
Delta Airlines Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Salt Lake City, Los
Angeles, Cincinnati
KLM Amsterdam
Source: (Cook, et.al, 2002)
Yield management, a strategy followed by airline companies, requires allocating
capacity to customers at the right price to maximize revenue or yield, enhance
customer service, improve operating efficiency and increase profitability under the
following conditions. Another practice followed by airline companies is
mergers/alliances. The future holds more concentration as a wave of alliances has
taken place and more are proposed. Alliances are taking place in all parts of the
world. KLM and Southwest joined in 1992. United and Delta, American and US
Airways and Continental and Northwest are some other airline pairs that were
merged together. United has Star Alliance which included Lufthansa, Air Canada,
Thai Airways, and SAS. More airlines were added to United Airlines recently.
American and British airlines have a global alliance of a number of airlines
including Qantas and Cathay Pacific.
Check Your Progress – I:
Fill in the blanks:
1. In India, majority of the airports are controlled by - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - -, a governmental agency.
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2. The Chicogo convention on Civil Aviation held in - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -.
3. IATA is a - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - organization and its membership consists
of practically all - - - - - - - - - - - - --.
4. International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is specialized agency of -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
5. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - was the first airline of India.
Check your answer with the one given at the end of the unit.
5.5 International Air Transport Organizations:
Air transportation is a complex process and the number of passengers being
transported by airlines is on the steady increase. This has necessitated establishing
agencies in the regional, national and international levels to assist, regulate and
control smooth flow of air traffic. Here, we discuss about two most important
organizations, which are involved in the international air transport.
5.5.1 IATA:
International Air Transport Association (IATA) is a world association of scheduled
airlines through which they co-ordinate their efforts to serve their passengers, share
their experiences and analyze their problems. It is a non-governmental
organization and membership consists of practically all air carriers. IATA is a
voluntary non-political industry association that serves as a forum for airlines to
develop common programmes for the smooth running of the international air
transport system. The principal function of IATA is to speed up the movement of
persons from any point on the world air network to any other point by a
combination of routes on the basis of a single ticket bought at a uniform price in
one currency. The same applies to the movement of goods and cargo. It’s main
headquarters are situated in Montreal, Canada (controlling American Continent)
and in Geneva (covering Europe, the middle east and Africa). One regional office
is located in Singapore, which controls operations in Asia and the pacific
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