In a world where passenger air travel is set to keep a positive growth rate over the years, airports all over the world are striving to increase their connectivity rate by attracting different airline companies, either for point to point connections or hub connectivity to wider the number of destinations reached from the airport to all over the world via a hub. From an airport perspective, creating a strategy to increase the connectivity performance index requires a lot of market analysis, following latest developments of hub connections from all over Europe, as hub connectivity tends to change on a yearly basis. Airport connectivity performance is directly linked to growth, studies (ACI Europe, 2018) showing that a +10% increase in passenger traffic leads to a +0.5% growth in the GDP per capita.
Category - Bogdan AVRAM
“Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Romania
Airport route development can be defined as a complex process carried out by airports, encouraging airlines to launch new routes or increase frequencies on already served destinations. The deregulated aviation environment helped airports to find new and innovative ways to compete directly with each other for a limited airline capacity, engaging with airlines and proving the airport route development strategy and airline needs meet at a certain point. The future prosperity of the communities the airports serve, depends on the efforts of the route development team and their focused aviation marketing strategy. A huge responsibility to attract what is best for the community as well as a good coordination between the airport, tourism boards, local business community and the active involvement of the citizens is crucial for any development strategy.
This research aims to investigate the different strategies adopted by the airline companies in adapting to the ongoing changes while developing products and services for passengers in order to increase their yield, load factor and passenger satisfaction. Finding a balance between costs and services quality in the airline industry is a crucial task for every airline wanting to gain a competitive advantage on the market. Also, the rise of the hybrid business operating model has brought up many challenges for airlines as the line between legacy carriers and low-cost carriers is getting thinner in terms of costs and innovative ideas to create a superior product for the passengers.
