Economic effects of air transport market liberalization in Africa

Although the aviation industry is increasingly becoming important for Africa’s economic development and integration, the ability of airlines to access foreign markets remains hindered by restrictive regulatory policies. Attempts have been made to fully liberalize the intra-African air transport market. Except for general assertions about the merits/demerits of liberalization, our empirical understanding of the welfare effects of such polices in Africa remains rudimentary. This study empirically measures the economic effects of air transport liberalization, mainly on two supply side variables: fare and service quality, measured as departure frequency. The empirical models evaluate how air fares and departure frequency respond to measures of openness in air services agreements, while controlling for other determinants. The results show up to 40% increase in departure frequency in routes that experienced some type of liberalization compared to those governed by restrictive bilateral air service agreements. Furthermore, there is a relatively larger increase in departure frequency in routes which experienced partial liberalization compared to fully liberalized ones. This can be explained by the diminishing marginal effect of progressive liberalization on departure frequency. While the effect of liberalization is substantial in improving service quality, there is no evidence of its fare reducing effect.     

Biofuels in aviation: Fuel demand and CO2 emissions evolution in Europe toward 2030

This article presents the results of a scenario-based study carried out at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre aimed at analyzing the future growth of aviation, the resulting fuel demand and the deployment of biofuels in the aviation sector in Europe. Three scenarios have been produced based on different input assumptions and leading to different underlying patterns of growth and resulting volumes of traffic. Data for aviation growth and hence fuel demand have been projected on a year by year basis up to 2030, using 2010 as the baseline. Data sources are Eurostat statistics and actual flight information from EUROCONTROL. Relevant variables such as the number of flights, the type of aircrafts, passengers or cargo tonnes and production indicators (RPKs) are used together with fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions data. The target of the European Advanced Biofuels Flightpath to ensure the commercialization and consumption of 2 million tons of sustainably produced paraffinic biofuels in the aviation sector by 2020, has also been taken into account. Results regarding CO₂ emission projections to 2030, reveal a steady annual increase in the order of 3%, 1% and 4% on average, for the three different scenarios, providing also a good correlation compared to the annual traffic growth rates that are indicated in the three corresponding scenarios. In absolute values, these ratios correspond to the central, the pessimistic and the optimistic scenarios respectively, corresponding to 360 million tonnes CO₂ emissions in 2030, ranging from 271 to 401 million tonnes for the pessimistic and optimistic scenarios, respectively. This article also reports on the supply potential of aviation biofuels (clustered in HEFA/HVOs and biojet) based on the production capacity of facilities around the world and provides an insight on the current and future trends in aviation based on the European and national policies, innovations and state-of-the art technologies that will influence the future of sustainable fuels in aviation.     

One manufacturer's approach to improving jet transport fuel efficiency

In the face of rapidly escalating costs of aircraft fuel, since the early 1970s, the aerospace industry has embarked on a program of measures to reduce fuel consumption. This article describes an integrated set of measures which have been undertaken by Lockheed‐California to improve the fuel requirements of the Tristar, a wide‐bodied three engine medium to long range aircraft. Measures include operational changes, improvements to maintenance practices, long term hardware modifications and technological advances.     

Traffic models for goods,service and business movements to manufacturing establishments

This paper is concerned with a problem area of increasing interest, namely the traffic characteristics of specific generators located on non‐residential land use. It concentrates on the problem of modelling traffic generation for goods, service and business movements at the manufacturing establishment. Firstly the contributions of earlier researchers are reviewed in the context of factors which have been considered important. Then a further study conducted by the author in Sheffield and in Manchester, England, is described. This study considers more rigorously than hitherto the questions of similarities in trip rates over different manufacturing activities and geographical areas, and of the choice of explanatory variables. Comparison of regressions is used to formalize indications of similarities in trip rates, and analysis of variance for choosing the most satisfactory explanatory variables. The study provides evidence of similarity in trip rates over seven different manufacturing activities and two geographical areas. It also shows distinctions between different non‐work traffic types in the extent of similarities in trip rates over different manufacturing activities and in explanatory variables for traffic generation relationships. Regarding the latter it is concluded that it is not possible to model accurately such traffic movements on the basis of explanatory variables which are normally available. Instead trip rates should be expressed in simple mathematical terms and should be based on large data populations. The study also makes contributions on peak flow factors for the actual design of facilities of manufacturing establishments. These findings and others are discussed in the context of the work of earlier researchers. Finally conclusions are drawn and guidance offered for future work into this problem.     

The asymmetric effects of income and fuel price on air transport demand

Forecasts of passenger demand are an important parameter for aviation planners. Air transport demand models typically assume a perfectly reversible impact of the demand drivers. However, there are reasons to believe that the impacts of some of the demand drivers such as fuel price or income on air transport demand may not be perfectly reversible. Two types of imperfect reversibility, namely asymmetry and hysteresis, are possible. Asymmetry refers to the differences in the demand impacts of a rising price or income from that of a falling price or income. Hysteresis refers to the dependence of the impacts of changing price or income on previous history, especially on previous maximum price or income. We use US time series data and decompose each of fuel price and income into three component series to develop an econometric model for air transport demand that is capable of capturing the potential imperfectly reversible relationships and test for the presence or absence of reversibility. We find statistical evidence of asymmetry and hysteresis – for both, prices and income – in air transport demand. Implications for policy and practice are then discussed.     

Time to burn: Flight delay,terminal efficiency,and fuel consumption in the National Airspace System

Improved Air Traffic Management (ATM) leading to reduced en route and gate delay, greater predictability in flight planning, and reduced terminal inefficiencies has a role to play in reducing aviation fuel consumption. Air navigation service providers are working to quantify this role to help prioritize and justify ATM modernization efforts. In the following study we analyze actual flight-level fuel consumption data reported by a major U.S. based airline to study the possible fuel savings from ATM improvements that allow flights to better adhere to their planned trajectories both en route and in the terminal area. To do so we isolate the contribution of airborne delay, departure delay, excess planned flight time, and terminal area inefficiencies on fuel consumption using econometric techniques. The model results indicate that, for two commonly operated aircraft types, the system-wide averages of flight fuel consumption attributed to ATM delay and terminal inefficiencies are 1.0–1.5% and 1.5–4.5%, respectively. We quantify the fuel impact of predicted delay to be 10–20% that of unanticipated delay, reinforcing the role of flight plan predictability in reducing fuel consumption. We rank terminal areas by quantifying a Terminal Inefficiency metric based on the variation in terminal area fuel consumed across flights. Our results help prioritize ATM modernization investments by quantifying the trade-offs in planned and unplanned delays and identifying terminal areas with high potential for improvement.     

Does European high-speed rail affect the current level of air services? An EU-wide analysis

This paper analyses whether the current provision of air services in Europe is impacted by high-speed rail (HSR). An ex-post analysis is carried out considering 161 routes EU-wide using transnational data. We use censored regressions with special attention paid to the presence of outliers in the sample and to the potential problem of non-normality of error terms. It is found that shorter HSR travel times involve less air services, with similar impact on both airline seats and flights. This impact quickly drops between 2.0- and 2.5-h HSR travel time. The impact of HSR frequencies is much more limited. Hubbing strategies led by the airlines have the opposite effect from HSR, as hubs involve more air services. Airline/HSR integration at the airport and cities being served by both central and peripheral stations have no significant impact. Metropolitan and national spatial patterns may help to better understand intermodal effects.     

Impact of service network topology on air transportation efficiency

Each stakeholder in the air transportation system has a different perspective on the performance efficiency metrics, making analysis of system-wide design options very difficult. This paper uses topological structures of service networks to examine trade-offs between efficiency metrics established around the passenger, airline, and air navigation service provider perspectives. The findings indicate that the scale-free type topologies are preferred under most of the metrics. However, with enough density, random topologies become more appealing with its high robustness feature and performance comparable to scale-free.     

Cycleways and footpaths: What separation is needed for equivalent air pollution dose between travel modes?

Cycling and walking are being promoted in many urban areas as alternatives to motorised transport for health, environmental, and financial reasons. The reduced congestion and resulting decrease in the overall amount of pollution reduced can be expected to result in health benefits for the community. However, active commuters, due to their increased respiration rates and often increased travel times can expect to receive larger doses of air pollution compared with those using motorised forms of transport. However, given the large dropoff in concentrations away from a road, it can be expected that significant reductions can be achieved even with relatively small increases in separation between the path of cyclists/pedestrians and motor vehicles.This study presents a simple methodology for calculating the separation needed for cyclists and pedestrians to experience the same air pollution dose as car commuters. An example is given based on carbon monoxide (CO) data collected in a field campaign consisting of a car driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian travelling on a 2600 metre loop of road in Auckland. For this case study, the estimated distance from the centreline needed for cyclists and pedestrians to receive an equivalent dose of CO as motorists was found to range from 5.8 to 14.2 m depending on the commuting mode and the dispersion state of the atmosphere at the site. This was equal to a CO concentration reduction of 0.1–0.14 ppm per metre. Recommendations on facility modifications and route selections have been made to make active mode commuting safer.     

Experimental investigation into the effects of air pockets on wave-in-deck loads of offshore structures

In this paper, air entrapment during slamming is an investigation subjected to an experimental method of inquiry, analysed alongside a theoretical approach obtained from previous attempts to address similar matters. The experiment consisted of assembling three different sizes and depths of artificially created pockets underneath the 1:75 deck model of a 76 m × 76 m prototype to encourage air entrapment and study how this entrapped air affects local and global loads. A parametric study is ultimately conducted on the geometry of the pocket, altering area and depth to observe the response to the pressure. Air entrapment effects were observed to reduce the magnitudes of impact pressure inside the pocket while slightly altering the force time histories in x and z-directions. Force magnitudes for global forces are significantly close to the smooth deck results. However, horizontal force data are slightly higher than their corresponding smooth deck due to additional surfaces inside the pocket. In addition, a parametric study of the depth and size of the pocket reveals that pocket depth is the dominant parameter that affects the impact pressure inside a pocket.