Competition for long-haul connecting traffic among airports in Europe and the Middle East

2017

Abstract This paper analyzes the competitive position of major hub airports in Europe and the Middle East for long-haul connecting traffic. We apply a connection builder to construct competitive flight connections. A stand out feature of the proposed connection builder is the calibration of the model parameters using booking data, composed of actual passenger demand between a given origin and destination (O&D) market. The methodology is applied to measure competition between hubs using flight schedule data to calculate connectivity measures like the number of city-pairs connected via a hub airport. Our results show that the Middle Eastern hubs have improved their competitive position, while…