eAirlines: strategic and tactical use of ICTs in the airline industry

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have revolutionised the entire business world. The airline industry in particular has fostered a dependency on technology for their operational and strategic management. Airlines were early adopters of ICTs and have a long history of technological innovation, in comparison to many other travel and tourism businesses. This paper discusses comprehensive research, including exploratory research with airline executives, using qualitative methods to examine the use of ICTs in the contemporary airline industry and to discuss recent developments in the industry. The work demonstrated that the airline industry was using the Internet to improve its distribution strategy and reduce costs; it also used Intranets and internal systems to develop tactical and strategic management. In addition, Extranets were being gradually used for communicating with partners and to support business-to-business (B2B) relationships. The effort demonstrated that ICTs will be critical for the strategic and operational management of airlines and will directly affect the future competitiveness of airlines.     

Analyzing business competition by using fuzzy TOPSIS method: An example of Turkish domestic airline industry

The article uses fuzzy TOPSIS multi-methodological approach in the Turkish domestic airline industry. It starts by describing exceedingly complex nature of competition in the sector. Then, it deals with the constituent parts of the research methodology and the eclectic approach itself. The implementation of fuzzy TOPSIS method in the Turkish domestic airline industry reveals the ranking of major air carriers in light of key success variables in the sector. The article also provides an evaluation of empirical findings of fuzzy TOPSIS method from a managerial perspective.     

More experience might not bring more safety: Negative moderating effect of pilots’ flight experience on their safety performance

ObjectiveThis study aimed to improve our understanding of the relationship between pilots' total flight hours (TFH), levels of hazardous attitude (HA), and flight safety performance.BackgroundThe negative effect of airline pilots' flight experience on safety performance has received attention but has not been extensively investigated.MethodUsing a sample of 45 Chinese commercial airline pilots, we not only tested the mediation model in which the relationship between TFH and exceedance rate was mediated by HA, but also tested the moderation model in which the relationship between HA and exceedance rate was moderated by TFH.ResultsTFH positively predict flight exceedance rates; more importantly, it moderated the effect of HA on flight exceedance rates. Specifically, TFH exacerbated the negative effect of HA on flight exceedance rates. Meanwhile, the mediating effect of HA was not significant.ConclusionResults implies the nonlinear relationship between TFH, HA, and flight safety performance. The moderation model indicates that the experience-related risks may appear before 5000 h for an individual commercial airline pilot.ApplicationResearchers, safety managers, and policymakers in the aviation industry that conduct pilots' psychological competency research in the Professionalism Lifecycle Management (PLM) system should be aware of the potentially interactive effects of hazardous attitude and experience on commercial airline pilots’ flight safety performance.     

Sustainability of Chinese airlines: A modified slack-based measure model for CO2 emissions

Sustainable airline operations have become an increasingly important issue in recent years. With this respect, several initiatives for reducing pollutant emissions—such as carbon dioxide (CO₂)—in the airline industry are now under consideration by regulators, policymakers, and companies. The impact of these initiatives upon efficiency levels of airline operations is still being analysed by different authors. This article is focused on the efficiency assessment of 13 major Chinese airlines from 2008 to 2015, applying a modified slack-based measure model to account for CO₂ emissions. The impact of contextual variables related to the airline's age, fleet mix, stock market governance, ownership type, network span, and whether or not it has undergone a previous merger and acquisition process is tested by means of a stochastic non-linear robust regression approach. Findings suggest that sustainability in Chinese airline operations is dependent upon a number of economic factors such as learning curve, economies of scale, technology type, and network management. Policy implications are derived for Chinese airlines.     

Energy management displays: a new concept for the civil flight deck

There exists a strong rationale for an energy management system onboard civil aircraft; this is based on a global move towards greater energy consciousness and more specific reasons relating to safety and efficiency in the airline industry. This paper considers the design of an interface for an energy management system. It reports the development of a number of display designs within the requirements and constraints of the flight deck context. Three designs are evaluated both with student participants and senior airline pilots. It was found that those displays with predictive information elements produced the most accurate decisions concerning aircraft energy states. Further investigation into the function of these predictive elements (within real-time flight scenarios) is required in order to evaluate their efficacy with the end-user group of airline pilots.     

Airline planning benchmark problems—Part II: Passenger groups,utility and demand allocation

This paper is the second of two papers entitled “Airline Planning Benchmark Problems”, aimed at developing benchmark data that can be used to stimulate innovation in airline planning, in particular, in flight schedule design and fleet assignment. The former has, to date, been under-represented in the optimisation literature, due in part to the difficulty of obtaining data that adequately reflects passenger choice, and hence schedule revenue. Revenue models in airline planning optimisation only roughly approximate the passenger decision process. However, there is a growing body of literature giving empirical insights into airline passenger choice. Here we propose a new paradigm for passenger modelling, that enriches our representation of passenger revenue, in a form designed to be useful for optimisation. We divide the market demand into market segments, or passenger groups, according to characteristics that differentiate behaviour in terms of airline product selection. Each passenger group has an origin, destination, size (number of passengers), departure time window, and departure time utility curve, indicating willingness to pay for departure in time sub-windows. Taking as input market demand for each origin–destination pair, we describe a process by which we construct realistic passenger group data, based on the analysis of empirical airline data collected by our industry partner. We give the results of that analysis, and describe 33 benchmark instances produced.     

A multiobjective approach to fleet, fuel and operating cost efficiency of European airlines

In this paper, a multiobjective DEA approach to airlines target setting has been proposed allowing for more control and flexibility in the determination of the trade-offs among environmental impact, fleet cost and operating cost. These variables are considered as inputs. Revenue Tonne-Kilometres (RTK) is the single output considered. For each airline, the proposed multiobjective Linear Programming model is solved using ADBASE, which finds all extreme efficient points in the Pareto Frontier. The representation of the Pareto Frontier as a function of RTK gives cues about the growth of the inputs and about their trade-offs with increasing output. Also, the technical efficiency of each airline has been assessed using a Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) of efficiency. The results show that about half of the airlines are technically inefficient and that most of the airlines operate below their Most Productive Scale Size which suggests that more industry consolidation is foreseeable in the future. Overall, although operating costs seem to be under control, there is an 8% overcapacity in terms of assets and a 7.2% excess carbon emissions. There is also room for an additional 4.4% overall traffic increase.     

Insight to the express transport network

The express delivery industry is developing rapidly in recent years and has attracted attention in many fields. Express shipment service requires that parcels be delivered in a limited time with a low operation cost, which requests a high level and efficient express transport network (ETN). The ETN is constructed based on the public transport networks, especially the airline network. It is similar to the airline network in some aspects, while it has its own feature. With the complex network theory, the topological properties of the ETN are analyzed deeply. We find that the ETN has the small-world property, with disassortative mixing behavior and rich club phenomenon. It also shows difference from the airline network in some features, such as edge density and average shortest path. Analysis on the corresponding distance-weighted network shows that the distance distribution displays a truncated power-law behavior. At last, an evolving model, which takes both geographical constraint and preference attachment into account, is proposed. The model shows similar properties with the empirical results.     

Development of a fuzzy ANP based SWOT analysis for the airline industry in Turkey

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis has been widely used to evaluate alternative strategies in order to determine the best one for given business setting. This study aims at providing a quantitative basis to analytically determine the ranking of the factors in SWOT analysis via a conventional multi-criteria decision making method, Analytic Network Process (ANP). The ANP method is preferred in this study because of its capability to model potential dependencies among the SWOT factors. The study presents uniqueness in the way it incorporates inherent vagueness and uncertainty of the human decision making process by means of the fuzzy logic. The proposed SWOT fuzzy ANP methodology was implemented and tested for the Turkish airline industry. The results showed that the SWOT fuzzy ANP is a viable and highly capable methodology that provides invaluable insights for strategic management decisions in the Turkish airline industry, and can also be used as an effective tool for other complex decision making processes.     

Development of a module based service family design for mass customization of airline sector using the coalition game

The Airline industry faces various issues and difficulties related to its management, which have a peculiar and a complex solution. The objective of this paper is to introduce new and simplified methodologies for improving the airline sector by introducing cost efficient and relatively high payout services. In this paper, we have applied strategic sharing of modules in service family design using coalition game and Cournot game theories to model the related situations. Service family design is a cost-effective way for achieving mass customization by developing highly differentiated products from a common platform while laying emphasis on individual products. A coalitional game is applied which is used to model the potential module sharing and thus determines which modules that are being used in the platform proves to be the most beneficial ones. The empirical evidence suggests that convenience, safety and service quality also have a major influence on the choice of airline passengers. In a Cournot model, new services are predicted to be introduced by an airline and the effect of that service on its profits and thus response from other competitor airlines are carefully examined and result of this, decides the layout of the service in the functionality of the airline. This research can be efficiently used to assist the working of airline companies and help them to select services and have a better understanding of the role of quality of different services in the airline sector as a whole, thus giving them an edge over its competitors.     

浅谈航空业数据仓库技术及其应用

该文旨在通过对数据仓库技术的简要分析,引出数据仓库技术在航空业的应用。详细分析航空业对数据仓库的需求,设计出适合航空公司发展的数据仓库技术应用方案,探讨了数据仓库和数据挖掘技术在航空业的应用前景。     

浅谈航空业数据仓库技术及其应用

该文旨在通过对数据仓库技术的简要分析,引出数据仓库技术在航空业的应用。详细分析航空业对数据仓库的需求,设计出适合航空公司发展的数据仓库技术应用方案,探讨了数据仓库和数据挖掘技术在航空业的应用前景。     

ReserVec: Trans-Canada Air Lines' computerized reservation system

The rapid growth of the airline industry in the immediate post-World War II years overwhelmed the manual reservation systems in use at that time. Trans-Canada Air Lines addressed this problem by developing ReserVec, a very early computerized airline reservation system that was designed and manufactured in Canada. ReserVec, unlike previous automated reservation systems, was fully programmable and ran on a general-purpose computer. The technology acquired from the development of ReserVec's Gemini computer was used first in the development of the Ferranti-Packard FP-6000 multiprogrammable computer (also developed in Canada) and then in the ICL 1900/2900 series of compatible computers. The article presents Trans-Canada Air Line's ReserVec system in the context of other automated airline reservation systems contemporary to ReserVec, including American Airline's Magnetronic Reservisor and SABRE systems     

Dynamic Customer Value Management: Asset Values under Demand Uncertainty using Airline Yield Management and Related Techniques

The focus of this paper is to demonstrate the close links between the airline and the manufacturing industry in so far as some of their decision support problems are concerned. We show that the yield management (YM) problem for the airline characterized by perishable and limited resources has counterparts in manufacturing and retail although with some variations. In the process of establishing similarities we highlight the importance of the concept of value of assets/resources, known as bid price in the airline terminology, that ties the two together. Several examples of its calculations and uses are provided. We believe that this new paradigm will open up new avenues for profits for manufacturers in the new era of e-commerce where the businesses shall have to be increasingly customer centric including pricing functions.     

Environmental change,competition, strategy,structure and firm performance: an application of data envelopment analysis in the airline industry

The impact of a significant environmental change, namely, deregulation, on strategic management and performance in the U.S. airline industry is examined. Firm performance is deemed to be affected by a configuration of competitive environment, strategy and structure. Using a new methodology, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), airline performance before and after deregulation is compared. The results support the gestalt proposition that the configurations under regulation differ significantly from those under deregulation. The promising use of DEA in strategic management research is underlined.     

A Reinforcement Learning Algorithm Based on Policy Iteration for Average Reward: Empirical Results with Yield Management and Convergence Analysis

We present a Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithm based on policy iteration for solving average reward Markov and semi-Markov decision problems. In the literature on discounted reward RL, algorithms based on policy iteration and actor-critic algorithms have appeared. Our algorithm is an asynchronous, model-free algorithm (which can be used on large-scale problems) that hinges on the idea of computing the value function of a given policy and searching over policy space. In the applied operations research community, RL has been used to derive good solutions to problems previously considered intractable. Hence in this paper, we have tested the proposed algorithm on a commercially significant case study related to a real-world problem from the airline industry. It focuses on yield management, which has been hailed as the key factor for generating profits in the airline industry. In the experiments conducted, we use our algorithm with a nearest-neighbor approach to tackle a large state space. We also present a convergence analysis of the algorithm via an ordinary differential equation method.     

The ergonomics of airplane seats: The problem with economy class

The increase in size (body mass and stature) and changing proportions of the human body over the past few decades should be considered in the ergonomic design of economy class airline seats. The aim of this study was to analyze the incongruity of the minimum space for seated passengers considering a group of Spanish adults. Thirteen variables were measured in a group of 201 females and 346 males. The results suggest a minimum leg room between 68.1 and 70.1 cm, and seat width between 50.2 and 52.3 cm. According to this study we can conclude that it is necessary to increase the minimum space in economy airline seats, specifically in terms of leg room and seat width.Relevance to industryThe increase in space of the economy class airline seats in the airline industry can be regarded as an important measure to reduce health risks, and improvement of comfort in the 21st century.     

Semi-Markov adaptive critic heuristics with application to airline revenue management

The adaptive critic heuristic has been a popular algorithm in reinforcement learning(RL) and approximate dynamic programming(ADP) alike.It is one of the first RL and ADP algorithms.RL and ADP algorithms are particularly useful for solving Markov decision processes(MDPs) that suffer from the curses of dimensionality and modeling.Many real-world problems,however,tend to be semi-Markov decision processes(SMDPs) in which the time spent in each transition of the underlying Markov chains is itself a random variable.Unfortunately for the average reward case,unlike the discounted reward case,the MDP does not have an easy extension to the SMDP.Examples of SMDPs can be found in the area of supply chain management,maintenance management,and airline revenue management.In this paper,we propose an adaptive critic heuristic for the SMDP under the long-run average reward criterion.We present the convergence analysis of the algorithm which shows that under certain mild conditions,which can be ensured within a simulator,the algorithm converges to an optimal solution with probability 1.We test the algorithm extensively on a problem of airline revenue management in which the manager has to set prices for airline tickets over the booking horizon.The problem has a large scale,suffering from the curse of dimensionality,and hence it is difficult to solve it via classical methods of dynamic programming.Our numerical results are encouraging and show that the algorithm outperforms an existing heuristic used widely in the airline industry.     

Mixed-fleet flying in commercial aviation: a joint cognitive systems perspective

Previous research investigating work activities and cognition in multi-crew airline flight decks has used a joint cognitive systems approach. However, is this approach suitable when some components—such as pilots—physically shift between differing aircraft, or joint cognitive systems? A current practice within the airline industry, known as mixed-fleet flying (MFF), allows pilots to fly aircraft of slightly differing configurations within the same working roster. The assumption held by aviation authorities is that pilots are permitted to fly in MFF configurations as long as relevant training occurs. Based on a cognitive anthropological study on pilots flying the same aircraft type—with differing flight deck configurations—we demonstrate that there are two different joint cognitive systems at work as each system involves different functional systems. The aim of this paper is to extend certain aspects of the joint cognitive systems approach to enable an analysis of real-world issues like MFF.     

The effect of 17-inch-wide and 18-inch-wide airplane passenger seats on comfort

The pitch and width of airline seats are crucial factors on the comfort of passengers. The aim of this study is to measure the comfort feeling of passengers regarding different widths and together with data from a previous study, to offer suggestions on the aircraft interior design. 311 participants were recruited and were asked to sit in 17-inch-wide and 18-inch-wide aircraft seats in a Boeing 737 fuselage for 10 min, respectively. Questionnaires on psychological comfort and overall discomfort, as well as an additional questionnaire on the discomfort of different body parts, were used to evaluate the comfort and discomfort experience of participants. Experiment results indicated that the comfort scores were significantly higher, and the discomfort scores were significantly lower for sitting in the 18-inch-wide seats than that of sitting in the 17-inch-wide seats. It was also found that rather than the buttock, the shoulders, knees, lower legs and feet contributed significantly to the reduction in overall discomfort by providing more space for movements. Regarding anthropometric measurements, participants with smaller hip-breadth felt more comfort while sitting the 18-inch-wide seat, which highlights the importance of the freedom of movement. By synthesizing the results of a previous study on the relations of the seat pitch and comfort, it was found that given the same amount of additional floor area, widening the seat is more effective on comfort than increasing the pitch.Relevance to industry: This discovery might be useful for the airline industry for a more effective and efficient usage of floor area.