Examination of air transportation trip time variability

Scheduled air transportation is required to provide a service that is safe, consistent, and dependable, with reliable trip times and delays managed within acceptable limits. High trip time variability and delay in the current system are driven by multiple factors; The study objectives were: (1) to develop a comprehensive database for individual major U.S. airline domestic trips between 1995 and 2005; (2) to explore the central tendency and variability of airline gate-to-gate trip times and delays; (3) to develop values for unconstrained, or unimpeded, trip times, and (4) to develop traveler and airline delay and variability costs relative to unimpeded trip times; The research used U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) data for scheduled domestic airline trips reported by major U.S. air carriers between 1995 and 2005. For valuing air carrier cost savings, this research estimated variable costs for individual trips, based on individual carrier financial reports to U.S. DOT; The research used reported trip times as a primary indicator, unimpeded trip times as a reference, and attached a cost to the excess of reported trip time over unimpeded trip time at the individual flight level. This approach represents a process for evaluating the time savings and operating cost impacts of measures for increasing capacity and reducing impedance in U.S. domestic scheduled air transportation; Areas in which trip time variability and delay impose a high penalty on travelers and airlines were identified. The most important study results concerned disproportionately higher delays and costs relative to: (1) origin and destination airports and corridors; (2) times of day; and (3) the days with highest delays. The main areas were arrivals and departures at leading airports (40 percent of flights and 55 percent of costs), flight departures and arrivals between noon and early evening (50 percent of flights and 60 percent of costs), and during the 40 percent of days in which there were heavy system wide delays (55 percent of costs) costs appropriate to time changes on individual trips, the magnitude of penalties incurred by impeded trips were estimated relative to unimpeded trips. These were: 150 million annual excess traveler hours per year; {dollar}8 billion annual excess air carrier operating costs; with 400 million annual gallons of excess jet fuel consumption. The costs of impeded trips added about 10 percent (or about {dollar}3.4 billion annually) to airline variable operating costs during the study period

Competitiveness and strategic change : a longitudinal study of the interactions between tourism industry and air Seychelles 1970 to 2007

In studying organisational change in Air Seychelles, the context, content and process of change together with the interconnections of the airline and the tourism industry in Seychelles through time is explored. The literature review shows that the substantive issues of interest to this study, contextualism as a theory of methods in management research, requires a case based research in particular with regards to the following gaps in the literature: the integration of inner and outer perspectives on sustaining competitive advantage, and conceptual insights on how strategy links firms and their environment. The study adopted a contextual and processual framework to build a theoretical perspective of competitive advantage. The study contributes to the field of strategic management and tourism development in Seychelles in the following ways: firstly, the development of a contextual and processual framework to explain the transformation of firms over time; secondly, the development of an understanding of the historical context of the tourism industry and its interactions with other sectors of the Seychelles economy; thirdly, developing an understanding of how Air Seychelles developed its resources and capabilities to sustain competitive advantage; fourthly, linking change processes and action to performance and in a sense developing an understanding on strategy implementation of strategic management practice in Air Seychelles. The study sheds some light on strategy formation and implementation at the firm level, and the dynamics between the firm and the industry. The findings suggest that firms respond opportunistically to external discontinuities in a dynamic environment - the entrepreneurial leadership of a firm prepares and support managers to operate under conditions of great uncertainty and ambiguity and allows them to behave opportunistically.Graduate School of Business LeadershipD.B.L

The Winning Hybrid - A case study of isomorphosm in the airline industry

The deregulated scheduled passenger airline industry is in a constant state of motion as managers continually adapt their business models to meet the challenging market environment. Such adaptation has led to a variety of airlines populating the industry; from the birth of low-cost carriers to the transformation of state-owned behemoths to lean and successful carriers. These dynamics challenge airline managers to continuously acclimate their business models and to understand industry evolution. This doctoral dissertation addresses the issue of industry evolution and attempts to propose future airline business models based on airline behavior. The intention is to improve understanding of industry evolution, propose a method for constructing future business models, and aid airline management in future strategic decisions. Three central themes are raised in the research: business model heterogeneity and its impact on airline performance, innovation and imitation as a justification for business model heterogeneity, and future business models grounded on airline innovation and imitation. Each theme forms the basis for the project’s three analyses. The research is categorized according to the customary industrial segmentation of full-service carriers, low-cost carriers, and regional carriers. The findings show that business model heterogeneity is evident at varying degrees in the industry, and that there is a positive relationship between the level adherence to a strategic group’s traditional business model and financial performance. This indicates that airlines that abide by their strategic group’s traditional business model perform better than those that differentiate themselves form the traditional business model. The low-cost carrier group is the most heterogeneous while the full-service carrier group is the most homogenous, which one may attribute to the historical emergence of these two groups. Results from a global survey distributed to airline CEOs show that business model differentiation is predicated on both innovation and imitation. The research shows that all airlines innovate, however business model changes based on this phenomenon may only afford an airline an advantage for a limited time period as imitation is prolific in the industry. Airline behavior indicates that airlines that populate the periphery of their strategic group are more prone to imitate other strategic groups. In addition, it is shown that airlines that closely adhere to their strategic group’s traditional business model are more likely to imitate airlines populating their own strategic group. The final analysis is based on the presence of innovation and imitation in the industry and incorporates these concepts in algebraic analyses which determine the unique combinations that continuously lead to a positive operating margin. The business model results suggest that the clear, historical distinctions between the strategic groups in the industry are becoming blurred, and that a winning hybrid may emerge

A general system planning methodology - G.S.P.M. - applied to national airport system planning - N.A.S.P. - in middle income and economically active countries - M.I.E.A.C.

A General System Planning Methodology (G.S.P.M.) has been proposed in this dissertation with the objective to promote planning practices improvements regardless to the characteristics of the planning context and to the nature of the planning field where it may be applied. The G.S.P.M. is a normative planning methodology based on procedural theory of planning, and it is addressed mainly to the multi-disciplinary planning actors dealing with the multi-objective planning context. The G.S.P.M. has been given a "procedural framework" supported by two Axiomatic Theories, and three objectives of planning have been selected to express simultaneously the G.S.P.M. effectiveness and the aimed Planning Improvement, and they are; Planning Adequacy, Planning Flexibility and Planning Continuity. The National Airport System Planning (N.A.S.P.) has been selected to be the planning field test for the G.S.P.M. and two different planning contexts have been selected to be respectively, the investigation field and the application field for the G.S.P.M. test. A sample of five developed countries have been chosen to represent the investigation field as follows; Norway, U.S.A., United Kingdom, Federal Republic of Germany, and Canada. A sample of four Middle Income and Economically Active Countries(M.I.E.A.C.) have been chosen as the application field, and Brazil has been selected the prime country with three further Brazilian Scenarios designed with the help of Developmental Scenarios Writing to represent that sample. A Multiple Cross System Analysis Matrix(M.C.S.A.M.) has been designed to be an instrument for the G.S.P.M. operational process within the application test in the N.A.S.P. of the two sample of countries. The M.C.S.A.M. is a bidimensional assessment matrix supported by planning theories and operated by multi-disciplinary planning actors to select the preferred aspects of planning which have been used to identify the characteristics of the planning context and planning environment. The M.C.S.A.M. has been designed to select also the preferred planning factors and goals which may represent the potentially most effective planning factors and goals within the given planning context. A Developed Countries Realist N.A.S.P. Methodology Model has been identified within the investigation field which would express the common N.A.S.P. framework within the developed countries, representing the "emphatical understanding" from which we supposed to learn their planning practices. A M.I.E.A.C. N.A.S.P. Realist Methodology Model has been identified within the application field which would express the common N.A.S.P. framework within the M.I.E.A. Countries. This realist model which has been obtained from the Brazilian Scenarios has been also called the Brazilian Planned Scenario N.A.S.P. which is supposed to be the ideal planning context hypothetically designed to improve the actual Brazilian N.A.S.P. practices, as a planning exercise of "predictable understanding". The comparative analyses of the two N.A.S.P. Realist Methodology Models has defined a Tailoring Process of Planning where the adequate planning method can be identified with the appropriate level of technology to the identified planning context

Efficient Decision Support Systems

This series is directed to diverse managerial professionals who are leading the transformation of individual domains by using expert information and domain knowledge to drive decision support systems (DSSs). The series offers a broad range of subjects addressed in specific areas such as health care, business management, banking, agriculture, environmental improvement, natural resource and spatial management, aviation administration, and hybrid applications of information technology aimed to interdisciplinary issues. This book series is composed of three volumes: Volume 1 consists of general concepts and methodology of DSSs; Volume 2 consists of applications of DSSs in the biomedical domain; Volume 3 consists of hybrid applications of DSSs in multidisciplinary domains. The book is shaped upon decision support strategies in the new infrastructure that assists the readers in full use of the creative technology to manipulate input data and to transform information into useful decisions for decision makers

Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Models and Technologies for Intelligent Transportation Systems 2013

Challenges arising from an increasing traffic demand, limited resource availability and growing quality expectations of the customers can only be met successfully, if each transport mode is regarded as an intelligent transportation system itself, but also as part of one intelligent transportation system with “intelligent” intramodal and intermodal interfaces. This topic is well reflected in the Third International Conference on “Models and Technologies for Intelligent Transportation Systems” which took place in Dresden 2013 (previous editions: Rome 2009, Leuven 2011). With its variety of traffic management problems that can be solved using similar methods and technologies, but with application specific models, objective functions and constraints the conference stands for an intensive exchange between theory and practice and the presentation of case studies for all transport modes and gives a discussion forum for control engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians and other researchers and practitioners. The present book comprises fifty short papers accepted for presentation at the Third Edition of the conference. All submissions have undergone intensive reviews by the organisers of the special sessions, the members of the scientific and technical advisory committees and further external experts in the field. Like the conference itself the proceedings are structured in twelve streams: the more model-oriented streams of Road-Bound Public Transport Management, Modelling and Control of Urban Traffic Flow, Railway Traffic Management in four different sessions, Air Traffic Management, Water Traffic and Traffic and Transit Assignment, as well as the technology-oriented streams of Floating Car Data, Localisation Technologies for Intelligent Transportation Systems and Image Processing in Transportation. With this broad range of topics this book will be of interest to a number of groups: ITS experts in research and industry, students of transport and control engineering, operations research and computer science. The case studies will also be of interest for transport operators and members of traffic administration