Exploring airline passengers’ willingness to pay for carbon offsets

This study examines airline passengers’ willingness to pay for carbon-offsets. Using the contingent valuation method of double-bounded dichotomous choice format and a survey of over 1000 Taiwanese passengers flying to countries in Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania to gauge their willingness-to-pay for airline carbon-offsets. The results suggest that despite the trip characteristics and personal background, air travel passengers’ knowledge and perceptions of the carbon-offset scheme also greatly influence the stated willingness to pay.     

Ground delay program planning under uncertainty in airport capacity

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm for assigning flight departure delays under probabilistic airport capacity. The algorithm dynamically adapts to weather forecasts by revising, if necessary, departure delays. The proposed algorithm leverages state-of-the-art optimization techniques that have appeared in recent literature. As a case study, the algorithm is applied to assigning departure delays to flights scheduled to arrive at San Francisco International Airport in the presence of uncertainty in the fog clearance time. The cumulative distribution function of fog clearance time was estimated from historical data. Using daily weather forecasts to update the probabilities of fog clearance times resulted in improvement of the algorithm's performance. Experimental results also indicate that if the proposed algorithm is applied to assign ground delays to flights inbound at San Francisco International airport, overall delays could be reduced up to 25% compared to current level.     

Clinical manifestations and cerebral angiographic findings of moyamoya disease

Objective To study the clinical features and angiographic findings of moyamoya disease (MMD) as well as their relationship. Methods A total of 22 MMD patients received routine digital substraction angiography (DSA). The clinical manifestations and angiographic findings were analyzed. Results Clinical manifestations varied and each patient often had multiple symptoms, including cerebral infarction in 9 patients with an average age of 23.6 (13-39 years) and cerebral hemorrhage in 7 patients with an average age of 31.2 (28-46 years). Angiographic examination found that all the diseased sides showed MMD blood vessels. The patients who received encephalo-myo-arterio-synangiosis (EMAS) had better prognosis than those without receiving the treatment. Conclusion Cerebral infarction is frequent in children and adolescents with MMD, whereas cerebral hemorrhage is common in adults. DSA is a golden criterion for diagnosing MMD. Surgical treatment, EMAS blood supply reconstruction in particular, should be prescribed.     

Deregulating direct flights across the Taiwan Strait: The transformation of Eastern Asian air transport market and network

Over the past decades Hong Kong has been successfully playing a role as a gateway to China. Since 1988, it has also been the most important hub between Taiwan and China. Over 5 million passengers travelled between Taipei and Hong Kong in 1997, making the link the busiest in the world's international air links and contributing one-sixth of the passengers to Hong Kong airport, which before 1997 had the most international passengers in Asia. In the foreseeable future Taiwan will possibly start some direct services to China; the air link between Hong Kong and Taipei will then compete with many links across Taiwan Strait. These changes may cause the transformation of the market and network structure in eastern Asia. Niches of specific airlines and airports will disappear. This paper examines the issues of possible changes in eastern Asian air transport market: the current market environment, the problems for direct flights across Taiwan Strait, the possible links between Taiwan and China, the future role of Hong Kong, and the market structure in the future.