Xiangru Wu , Kun Wang , Xiaowen Fu , Kangyin Dong , Xiaoqian Sun , Tae Hoon Oum
{"title":"COVID-19 大流行如何影响航空公司的航线选择和市场接触?- 中国的全服务航空公司与低成本航空公司","authors":"Xiangru Wu , Kun Wang , Xiaowen Fu , Kangyin Dong , Xiaoqian Sun , Tae Hoon Oum","doi":"10.1016/j.tra.2024.104291","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We empirically examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on airlines’ route choices and market contact based on the Chinese domestic market over the period 2019–2022. An airline route choice model is estimated for both full-service carriers (FSCs) and Spring Airlines, China’s largest and most representative low-cost carriers (LCCs), which disentangles the “attenuating” and “persistent” effects of the pandemic on airlines’ route choices. The former effect refers to airlines exiting from extant routes in response to the sudden decline in air travel demand and strict pandemic controls, while the latter effect reflects airlines’ relatively long-term adjustment of their competition strategy triggered by the pandemic. Our empirical findings are as follows: The pandemic had a positive “persistent effect” and a negative “attenuating effect” on Spring Airlines. Spring Airlines has actively expanded its network to all types of routes, especially the dense routes connected to major airports. FSCs also adjusted their route entry strategy by entering more thin routes connected to secondary cities (i.e., a positive “persistent effect”). The pandemic has broken the equilibrium of network differentiation between FSCs and Spring Airlines in China. Spring Airlines has begun expanding services at FSCs’ major hub airports. FSCs have also tried to serve more lucrative niche routes that were previously monopolized by Spring Airlines. Overall, we observe more frequent market contact and increasing head-to-head competition between FSCs and Spring Airlines during the pandemic, when the overall traffic volume has rebounded to the pre-pandemic level. This is probably because of the airlines’ desperate need for cash flow amid financial difficulties, forcing them to intensify competition. This could have also been facilitated by more idle aircraft/airport slot capacities reallocated from the international market to the domestic market during the pandemic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49421,"journal":{"name":"Transportation Research Part A-Policy and Practice","volume":"191 ","pages":"Article 104291"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"How does COVID-19 pandemic affect airline’s route choice and market contact? − Full-service carriers vs. low-cost carriers in China\",\"authors\":\"Xiangru Wu , Kun Wang , Xiaowen Fu , Kangyin Dong , Xiaoqian Sun , Tae Hoon Oum\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.tra.2024.104291\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><div>We empirically examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on airlines’ route choices and market contact based on the Chinese domestic market over the period 2019–2022. An airline route choice model is estimated for both full-service carriers (FSCs) and Spring Airlines, China’s largest and most representative low-cost carriers (LCCs), which disentangles the “attenuating” and “persistent” effects of the pandemic on airlines’ route choices. The former effect refers to airlines exiting from extant routes in response to the sudden decline in air travel demand and strict pandemic controls, while the latter effect reflects airlines’ relatively long-term adjustment of their competition strategy triggered by the pandemic. Our empirical findings are as follows: The pandemic had a positive “persistent effect” and a negative “attenuating effect” on Spring Airlines. Spring Airlines has actively expanded its network to all types of routes, especially the dense routes connected to major airports. FSCs also adjusted their route entry strategy by entering more thin routes connected to secondary cities (i.e., a positive “persistent effect”). The pandemic has broken the equilibrium of network differentiation between FSCs and Spring Airlines in China. Spring Airlines has begun expanding services at FSCs’ major hub airports. FSCs have also tried to serve more lucrative niche routes that were previously monopolized by Spring Airlines. Overall, we observe more frequent market contact and increasing head-to-head competition between FSCs and Spring Airlines during the pandemic, when the overall traffic volume has rebounded to the pre-pandemic level. This is probably because of the airlines’ desperate need for cash flow amid financial difficulties, forcing them to intensify competition. This could have also been facilitated by more idle aircraft/airport slot capacities reallocated from the international market to the domestic market during the pandemic.</div></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":49421,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Transportation Research Part A-Policy and Practice\",\"volume\":\"191 \",\"pages\":\"Article 104291\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":6.3000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-11-05\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Transportation Research Part A-Policy and Practice\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"5\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856424003392\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"工程技术\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"ECONOMICS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Transportation Research Part A-Policy and Practice","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856424003392","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
How does COVID-19 pandemic affect airline’s route choice and market contact? − Full-service carriers vs. low-cost carriers in China
We empirically examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on airlines’ route choices and market contact based on the Chinese domestic market over the period 2019–2022. An airline route choice model is estimated for both full-service carriers (FSCs) and Spring Airlines, China’s largest and most representative low-cost carriers (LCCs), which disentangles the “attenuating” and “persistent” effects of the pandemic on airlines’ route choices. The former effect refers to airlines exiting from extant routes in response to the sudden decline in air travel demand and strict pandemic controls, while the latter effect reflects airlines’ relatively long-term adjustment of their competition strategy triggered by the pandemic. Our empirical findings are as follows: The pandemic had a positive “persistent effect” and a negative “attenuating effect” on Spring Airlines. Spring Airlines has actively expanded its network to all types of routes, especially the dense routes connected to major airports. FSCs also adjusted their route entry strategy by entering more thin routes connected to secondary cities (i.e., a positive “persistent effect”). The pandemic has broken the equilibrium of network differentiation between FSCs and Spring Airlines in China. Spring Airlines has begun expanding services at FSCs’ major hub airports. FSCs have also tried to serve more lucrative niche routes that were previously monopolized by Spring Airlines. Overall, we observe more frequent market contact and increasing head-to-head competition between FSCs and Spring Airlines during the pandemic, when the overall traffic volume has rebounded to the pre-pandemic level. This is probably because of the airlines’ desperate need for cash flow amid financial difficulties, forcing them to intensify competition. This could have also been facilitated by more idle aircraft/airport slot capacities reallocated from the international market to the domestic market during the pandemic.
期刊介绍:
Transportation Research: Part A contains papers of general interest in all passenger and freight transportation modes: policy analysis, formulation and evaluation; planning; interaction with the political, socioeconomic and physical environment; design, management and evaluation of transportation systems. Topics are approached from any discipline or perspective: economics, engineering, sociology, psychology, etc. Case studies, survey and expository papers are included, as are articles which contribute to unification of the field, or to an understanding of the comparative aspects of different systems. Papers which assess the scope for technological innovation within a social or political framework are also published. The journal is international, and places equal emphasis on the problems of industrialized and non-industrialized regions.
Part A''s aims and scope are complementary to Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Part C: Emerging Technologies and Part D: Transport and Environment. Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review. Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. The complete set forms the most cohesive and comprehensive reference of current research in transportation science.