Capturing and Delivering Value in the Trans-Atlantic Air Travel Market: The Case of the Air France-KLM, Delta Air Lines, and Virgin Atlantic Airways Strategic Joint Venture

This paper presents a case study of the Air France-KLM, Delta Air Lines, and Virgin Atlantic transatlantic joint venture, one of the world’s largest strategic passenger joint ventures. The study used a qualitative research approach. The data gathered for the study was examined by document analysis. The strategic analysis of the joint venture was based on the use of Porter’s Five Forces Model. The study found that the joint venture has evolved over time through the addition of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Alitalia, and Virgin Atlantic Airways to the original joint venture between Air France and Delta Air Lines. The joint venture has provided significant synergistic benefits to the partners and has allowed the partners to access new markets and to participate in the evolution of the transatlantic air travel market, one of the world’s major air travel markets. The joint venture has also enabled the venture partners to enhance their competitive position through strengthened service offerings, a comprehensive route network that offers customers a high level of connectivity, and greater flight frequencies within their own route networks, all of which creates value for the partners. A limitation of the study was that the annual revenue, revenue passenger kilometres performed, or passenger load factors data was not available. It was, therefore, not possible to analyze the business performance of the joint venture

The Use of Aviation Biofuels as an Airport Environmental Sustainability Measure: The Case of Oslo Gardermoen Airport

In recent times, there has been a growing trend by airports and airlines to use aviation biofuel as an environment sustainability measure. Using an instrumental qualitative case study research design, this paper examines the evolution of sustainable aviation fuels at Oslo Airport Gardermoen. Oslo Airport Gardermoen was the first airport in the world to offer the first airport in the world to offer aviation biofuels to all airlines in 2016. The qualitative data were examined by document analysis. The study found that the use of sustainable aviation biofuels has delivered tangible environmental benefits to Oslo Gardermoen Airport. The usage of aviation biofuels has enabled the airport, and the airlines using sustainable aviation biofuels, to reduce their greenhouse gases by 10-15%. Also, as part of Norway’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Norwegian Government have mandated that the aviation fuel industry must mix 0.5% advanced biofuel into jet fuel from 2020 onwards.  Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment’s goal is that by 2030, 30% of the airline fuel will be sustainable in nature and will have a positive climate effect. Avinor, the operator of Norway’s airports, has a goal that by 2030, 30 % of aviation fuel supplied in Norway should be sustainable biofuel – this follows the Norwegian government’s mandate

Capturing and Delivering Competitive Advantage in the Japan to Europe and Europe to Japan Air Cargo Markets: The Case of the ANA Cargo and Lufthansa Cargo A.G. Strategic Joint Venture

This paper presents a case study of the ANA Cargo and Lufthansa Cargo strategic joint venture, the global air cargo industry’s first strategic joint venture between two of the world’s major air cargo-carrying airlines. The data gathered for the study was examined by document analysis. The strategic analysis of the joint venture was underpinned by the use of Porter’s Five Forces Model. The study found that the joint venture has provided synergistic benefits to both partners and has allowed the partners to access new markets and to participate in the evolution of the air cargo industry. The joint venture has also enabled both joint venture partners to enhance their competitive position in the Europe to Japan and Japan to Europe air cargo markets through strengthened service offerings and has provided the partners with increased cargo capacities, a larger route network, and greater frequencies within their own route networks. A limitation of the study was that ANA Cargo and Lufthansa Cargo revenues, or freight traffic data was not available. It was, therefore, not possible to analyse the business performance of the joint venture

Exploring Civil Drone Accidents and Incidents to Help Prevent Potential Air Disasters

A recent alleged “drone” collision with a British Airways Airbus A320 at Heathrow Airport highlighted the need to understand civil Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) accidents and incidents (events). This understanding will facilitate improvements in safety by ensuring efforts are focused to reduce the greatest risks. One hundred and fifty two RPAS events were analyzed. The data was collected from a 10-year period (2006 to 2015). Results show that, in contrast to commercial air transportation (CAT), RPAS events have a significantly different distribution when categorized by occurrence type, phase of flight, and safety issue. Specifically, it was found that RPAS operations are more likely to experience (1) loss of control in-flight, (2) events during takeoff and in cruise, and (3) equipment problems. It was shown that technology issues, not human factors, are the key contributor in RPAS events. This is a significant finding, as it is contrary to the industry view which has held for the past quarter of a century that human factors are the key contributor (which is still the case for CAT). Regulators should therefore look at technologies and not focus solely on operators

The Role of Freighter Aircraft in a Full-Service Network Airline Air Freight Services: The Case of Qantas Freight

The dedicated all-cargo aircraft market is vital to the global economy. Freighter aircraft now carry around 56 per cent of world air cargo traffic. Using an in-depth case study research design, this study examined the Qantas Freight Boeing B747-400 and B767-300 freighter aircraft route network design during the 2017/2018 Northern Winter Flight schedule period, which was in effect from the 29th October 2017 to March 24th, 2018. The qualitative data were examined by document analysis. The study found that Qantas Freight deploy their leased B747-400 freighter aircraft on a route network that originates in Sydney and incorporates key markets in Thailand and China with major markets in the United States. The Boeing B767-300 freighter aircraft operated 5 services per week on a Sydney/Auckland/Christchurch/Sydney routing as a well as a weekly Sydney/Hong Kong/Sydney service. The Boeing B747-400 freighter services could generate 114,755,020 available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs) over the schedule period. The Boeing B767-300 freighter aircraft could generate 46,974,1440 AFTKs. The Qantas Freight route network and freighter fleet is underpinned by Australia’s liberalized freighter aircraft policy, the “Open Skies” agreement between Australia and China – which permits the onward carriage of cargo traffic across the trans-Pacific – and the liberalized “open skies” agreement with New Zealand

A forecasting Tool for Predicting Australia\u27s Domestic Airline Passenger Demand Using a Genetic Algorithm

This study has proposed and empirically tested for the first time genetic algorithm optimization models for modelling Australia’s domestic airline passenger demand, as measured by enplaned passengers (GAPAXDE model) and revenue passenger kilometres performed (GARPKSDE model). Data was divided into training and testing datasets; 74 training datasets were used to estimate the weighting factors of the genetic algorithm models and 13 out-of-sample datasets were used for testing the robustness of the genetic algorithm models. The genetic algorithm parameters used in this study comprised population size (n): 200; the generation number: 1,000; and mutation rate: 0.01. The modelling results have shown that both the quadratic GAPAXDE and GARPKSDE models are more accurate, reliable, and have greater predictive capability as compared to the linear models. The mean absolute percentage error in the out of sample testing dataset for the GAPAXDE and GARPKSDE quadratic models are 2.55 and 2.23%, respectively

A Post-Accident Analysis of Civil Remotely-Piloted Aircraft System Accidents and Incidents

A sample of 152 accidents and incidents involving Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, more commonly referred to as drones , have been analysed. The data was collected from a 10-year period, 2006 to 2015, conveniently sourced from a limited population owing to the scarcity of reports. Results indicate that safety occurrences involving Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) have a significantly different distribution of contributing factors when sorted into distinct categories. This provides a thorough and up-to-date characterization of the safety deficiencies specific to RPAS. In turn, this contributes to the development of adequate safety management systems applicable to the RPAS sector. The majority of RPAS occurrences involved system component failures which were the result of equipment problems. Therefore, airworthiness instead of pilot licensing needs to be considered first when regulating the Remotely Piloted Aircraft System industry. Human factors and loss of control in-flight were found to be the second most common contributing factor and occurrence category , respectively; Remotely Piloted Aircraft pilot licensing will help reduce the probability of these secondary occurrences. The most significant conclusion is that reporting systems must be implemented to address RPAS accidents and incidents specifically, such that more useful data is available, and further analysis is possible facilitating an improved understanding and greater awareness

A preliminary investigation of maintenance contributions to commercial air transport accidents

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Aircraft maintenance includes all the tasks needed to ensure an aircraft’s continuing airworthiness. Accidents that result from these maintenance activities can be used to assess safety. This research seeks to undertake a preliminary investigation of accidents that have maintenance contributions. An exploratory design was utilized, which commenced with a content analysis of the accidents with maintenance contributions (n = 35) in the official ICAO accident data set (N = 1277), followed by a quantitative ex-post facto study. Results showed that maintenance contributions are involved in 2.8 ± 0.9% of ICAO official accidents. Maintenance accidents were also found to be more likely to have one or more fatalities (20%), compared to all ICAO official accidents (14.7%). The number of accidents with maintenance contributions per year was also found to have reduced over the period of the study; this rate was statistically significantly greater than for all accidents (5%/year, relative to 2%/year). Results showed that aircraft between 10 and 20 years old were most commonly involved in accidents with maintenance contributions, while aircraft older than 18 years were more likely to result in a hull loss, and aircraft older than 34 years were more likely to result in a fatality

Can the renewed interest in ultra-long-range passenger flights be satisfied by the current generation of civil aircraft?

A number of full service network carriers have recently stated their ambition to develop certain ultra-long-range (ULR) routes, such as Doha to Auckland, Dubai to Auckland, Dubai to Panama City, Singapore to San Francisco, Singapore to New York, all of which require a great circle distance between 7,000–9,000 nautical miles (nm) with an estimated travel time between 15 and 20 hours. This paper examines the capability of the current generation of wide-bodied passenger aircraft to satisfy this evolving strategy, and the impact, if any, on the provision of air cargo transportation. An exploratory study is presented herein based on an assessment of each aircraft type’s payload-range envelope, taken from the appropriate Aircraft Airports Handling Characteristics Manual. The key findings reveal that airlines wishing to pursue this ultra-long-range strategy have a surprisingly limited choice of current-generation passenger aircraft which are capable of flying the desired mission profile without compromising significantly on passenger numbers and cargo payload

The Air Cargo Carrying Potential of The Airbus A350-900XWB and Boeing 787-9 Aircraft on Their Ultra-Long-Haul Flights: A Case Study for Flights from San Francisco to Singapore

"jats:p"The introduction of the Airbus A350-900 (A359) and the Boeing B787-9 (B789) have enabled airlines to operate ultra-long-range services. Using a mixed methods research design, this study has examined the air cargo-carrying potential of Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-900XWB (A359) and United Airlines Boeing B787-9 (789) aircraft on their ultra-long-haul San Francisco to Singapore and the Singapore to San Francisco air routes. The qualitative data was analysed using document analysis, and the air cargo payload was modelled by simulation. The air cargo-carrying potential of the two aircraft types was significantly influenced by enroute weather. In the event of eastbound winds, the Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-900XWB air cargo payload was 16.9 tonnes and the United Airlines Boeing 787-9 was 11.5 tonnes, when these flights had a full passenger payload. In the case of westbound winds with a full passenger payload, the Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-900XWB air cargo payload was 13.1 tonnes and the United Airlines Boeing 787-9 was 7.9 tonnes. When there were no winds on the air routes, the Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-900XWB offered 15.0 tonnes and the United Airline Boeing 787-9 offered 9.7 tonnes of air cargo payload, respectively. Document type: Articl