Airline Industry
Chapter 2
Characteristics of the Airline Industry
The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones. John Maynard Keynes
2.1 Introduction
In recent years, the European airline industry has exhibited impressively dynamics. The sector has gone through a drastic change on both the supply and the demand side. Unlikely in other industries, the driving forces governing the recent changes do not depend mainly on technological factors, but on developments in the legal, institutional, and cultural domains. Legal and institutional aspects have clearly affected the structure of the market, while cultural forces have influenced spatial mobility and its characteristics. On the supply side, we observe that only a few industries have faced changes as dramatic as those that have occurred in the European airline industry in the past 20 years. Over this time period, the industry has evolved from a system of longestablished state-owned carriers operating in a regulated market to a dynamic, freemarket industry. Before the deregulation, only one or two flag carriers operated the European routes, with airfares being regulated by state bilateral agreements. The process of deregulation and the subsequent process of privatization have induced important changes in the structure of the airline market. This chapter presents a concise analysis of the main characteristics and changes in the aviation sector, mainly from the supply side, which has followed the deregulation.1 The aim is to draw a new profile of the airline industry in terms of new airline business models and compare their characteristics in a way which has rarely been presented in the literature to date. Section 2.2 describes the deregulation of
1
This chapter mainly attempts to describe the European market but draws parallels with other markets. Thus, some elements of the description can easily be generalizable to other markets. A. Cento, The Airline
Characteristics of the Airline Industry
The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones. John Maynard Keynes
2.1 Introduction
In recent years, the European airline industry has exhibited impressively dynamics. The sector has gone through a drastic change on both the supply and the demand side. Unlikely in other industries, the driving forces governing the recent changes do not depend mainly on technological factors, but on developments in the legal, institutional, and cultural domains. Legal and institutional aspects have clearly affected the structure of the market, while cultural forces have influenced spatial mobility and its characteristics. On the supply side, we observe that only a few industries have faced changes as dramatic as those that have occurred in the European airline industry in the past 20 years. Over this time period, the industry has evolved from a system of longestablished state-owned carriers operating in a regulated market to a dynamic, freemarket industry. Before the deregulation, only one or two flag carriers operated the European routes, with airfares being regulated by state bilateral agreements. The process of deregulation and the subsequent process of privatization have induced important changes in the structure of the airline market. This chapter presents a concise analysis of the main characteristics and changes in the aviation sector, mainly from the supply side, which has followed the deregulation.1 The aim is to draw a new profile of the airline industry in terms of new airline business models and compare their characteristics in a way which has rarely been presented in the literature to date. Section 2.2 describes the deregulation of
1
This chapter mainly attempts to describe the European market but draws parallels with other markets. Thus, some elements of the description can easily be generalizable to other markets. A. Cento, The Airline