IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v112y2018icp18-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Determinants of air travel demand: The role of low-cost carriers, ethnic links and aviation-dependent employment

Author

Listed:
  • Boonekamp, Thijs
  • Zuidberg, Joost
  • Burghouwt, Guillaume

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive gravity model in which the most important determinants for air travel demand have been identified using a two-stage least squares technique. Besides including the standard demand factors like GDP, population and tourism, the effects of other determinants such as domestic traffic, low-cost carrier (LCC) activity and public service obligations are also estimated. The profound contribution of the paper lies in the inclusion of two innovative variables in the estimations: ethnic links and aviation-dependent employment. The econometric results show that both ethnic links between countries and the share of aviation-dependent employment increase passenger demand. Moreover, the results confirm that LCC presence leads to a significant increase in passenger demand, particularly on routes where Europe’s largest LCCs, Ryanair and easyJet, are active.

Suggested Citation

  • Boonekamp, Thijs & Zuidberg, Joost & Burghouwt, Guillaume, 2018. "Determinants of air travel demand: The role of low-cost carriers, ethnic links and aviation-dependent employment," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 18-28.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:112:y:2018:i:c:p:18-28
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2018.01.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856418300156
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2018.01.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Button, Kenneth & Taylor, Samantha, 2000. "International air transportation and economic development," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 209-222.
    2. Veldhuis, Jan, 1997. "The competitive position of airline networks," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 181-188.
    3. A S Fotheringham & D W S Wong, 1991. "The Modifiable Areal Unit Problem in Multivariate Statistical Analysis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 23(7), pages 1025-1044, July.
    4. Brons, Martijn & Pels, Eric & Nijkamp, Peter & Rietveld, Piet, 2002. "Price elasticities of demand for passenger air travel: a meta-analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 165-175.
    5. Klophaus, Richard & Conrady, Roland & Fichert, Frank, 2012. "Low cost carriers going hybrid: Evidence from Europe," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 54-58.
    6. de Wit, Jaap G. & Zuidberg, Joost, 2012. "The growth limits of the low cost carrier model," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 17-23.
    7. Sismanidou, Athina & Tarradellas, Joan & Bel, Germà & Fageda, Xavier, 2013. "Estimating potential long-haul air passenger traffic in national networks containing two or more dominant cities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 108-116.
    8. Suau-Sanchez, Pere & Burghouwt, Guillaume & Pallares-Barbera, Montserrat, 2014. "An appraisal of the CORINE land cover database in airport catchment area analysis using a GIS approach," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 12-16.
    9. Fridström, Lasse & Thune-Larsen, Harald, 1989. "An econometric air travel demand model for the entire conventional domestic network: The case of Norway," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 213-223, June.
    10. Martijn Burger & Frank van Oort & Gert-Jan Linders, 2009. "On the Specification of the Gravity Model of Trade: Zeros, Excess Zeros and Zero-inflated Estimation," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 167-190.
    11. Carson, Richard T. & Cenesizoglu, Tolga & Parker, Roger, 2011. "Forecasting (aggregate) demand for US commercial air travel," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 923-941, July.
    12. Valdes, Victor, 2015. "Determinants of air travel demand in Middle Income Countries," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 75-84.
    13. Abed, Seraj Y. & Ba-Fail, Abdullah O. & Jasimuddin, Sajjad M., 2001. "An econometric analysis of international air travel demand in Saudi Arabia," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 143-148.
    14. Kennedy, Peter E, 1981. "Estimation with Correctly Interpreted Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations [The Interpretation of Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations]," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 801-801, September.
    15. Frédéric Dobruszkes, 2009. "New Europe, new low-cost air services," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/95851, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Graham, Anne, 2000. "Demand for leisure air travel and limits to growth," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 109-118.
    17. Stephen J. Appold & John D. Kasarda, 2013. "The Airport City Phenomenon: Evidence from Large US Airports," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(6), pages 1239-1259, May.
    18. Chi, Junwook, 2014. "A cointegration analysis of bilateral air travel flows: The case of international travel to and from the United States," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 41-47.
    19. Grosche, Tobias & Rothlauf, Franz & Heinzl, Armin, 2007. "Gravity models for airline passenger volume estimation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 175-183.
    20. David E. Giles, 2011. "Interpreting Dummy Variables in Semi-logarithmic Regression Models: Exact Distributional Results," Econometrics Working Papers 1101, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    21. Walter Isard, 1954. "Location Theory and Trade Theory: Short-Run Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 68(2), pages 305-320.
    22. Bieger, Thomas & Wittmer, Andreas & Laesser, Christian, 2007. "What is driving the continued growth in demand for air travel? Customer value of air transport," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 31-36.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dobruszkes, Frédéric & Vandermotten, Christian, 2022. "Do scale and the type of markets matter? Revisiting the determinants of passenger air services worldwide," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    2. Frédéric Dobruszkes & Christian Vandermotten, 2022. "Do scale and the type of markets matter? Revisiting the determinants of passenger air services worldwide," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/336304, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Wang, Sen & Gao, Yi, 2021. "A literature review and citation analyses of air travel demand studies published between 2010 and 2020," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    4. Abdelghany, Ahmed & Guzhva, Vitaly S., 2022. "Exploratory analysis of air travel demand stimulation in first-time served markets," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Tirtha, Sudipta Dey & Bhowmik, Tanmoy & Eluru, Naveen, 2023. "Understanding the factors affecting airport level demand (arrivals and departures) using a novel modeling approach," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    6. Hanson, Daniel & Toru Delibasi, Tuba & Gatti, Matteo & Cohen, Shamai, 2022. "How do changes in economic activity affect air passenger traffic? The use of state-dependent income elasticities to improve aviation forecasts," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    7. Dey Tirtha, Sudipta & Bhowmik, Tanmoy & Eluru, Naveen, 2022. "An airport level framework for examining the impact of COVID-19 on airline demand," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 169-181.
    8. Zhang, Lu & Gong, Jiaying, 2024. "Decoding air passenger flows: Identifying the role of network autocorrelation in air travel," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    9. Tirtha, Sudipta Dey & Bhowmik, Tanmoy & Eluru, Naveen, 2024. "Accommodating spatio-temporal dependency in airline demand modeling," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    10. Li, Yongling & Wang, Jiaoe & Huang, Jie & Chen, Zhuo, 2022. "Impact of COVID-19 on domestic air transportation in China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 95-103.
    11. Suau-Sanchez, Pere & Voltes-Dorta, Augusto & Rodríguez-Déniz, Héctor, 2016. "Measuring the potential for self-connectivity in global air transport markets: Implications for airports and airlines," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 70-82.
    12. Truong, Dothang, 2021. "Estimating the impact of COVID-19 on air travel in the medium and long term using neural network and Monte Carlo simulation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    13. Jankiewicz, Jacek & Huderek-Glapska, Sonia, 2016. "The air transport market in Central and Eastern Europe after a decade of liberalisation – Different paths of growth," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 45-56.
    14. Mohammadian, Iman & Abareshi, Ahmad & Abbasi, Babak & Goh, Mark, 2019. "Airline capacity decisions under supply-demand equilibrium of Australia’s domestic aviation market," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 108-121.
    15. Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2021. "Profit margins in U.S. domestic airline routes," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 245-251.
    16. Kağan Albayrak, Muhammed Bilge & Özcan, İsmail Çağrı & Can, Raif & Dobruszkes, Frédéric, 2020. "The determinants of air passenger traffic at Turkish airports," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    17. Hu, Yi & Xiao, Jin & Deng, Ying & Xiao, Yi & Wang, Shouyang, 2015. "Domestic air passenger traffic and economic growth in China: Evidence from heterogeneous panel models," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 95-100.
    18. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6792 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Xuanyu Yue & Julie Byrne, 2021. "Linking the Determinants of Air Passenger Flows and Aviation Related Carbon Emissions: A European Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-16, July.
    20. Gelhausen, Marc C. & Berster, Peter & Wilken, Dieter, 2018. "A new direct demand model of long-term forecasting air passengers and air transport movements at German airports," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 140-152.
    21. Pels, Eric, 2021. "Optimality of the hub-spoke system: A review of the literature, and directions for future research," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 1-10.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:112:y:2018:i:c:p:18-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.