Between 2000-2010, newly merged U.S. airlines decreased service to airports in small and mid-sized metropolitan regions, opting to consolidate their operations at high-value airport hubs (passenger transfer points). At this point travelers living in small and mid-sized regions likely began leaking, or abandoning their local airport to take flights from hub airports offering more convenient flight options. The extent of this practice, however, is not well established. My study asks to what extent airline consolidation deepened the divide in service levels between airports that are 100-300 miles apart, and seeks to estimate the magnitude of air traveler leakage at small and medium airports across the U.S. I estimate that travelers living in small and mid-sized metropolitan regions have the incentive to “leak” from their airport to a distant, better-served airport using vast aviation and highway data as well as discrete choice models of long distance choice. I do this by varying coefficients that reflect the value of travel time; this simulates the value of time a traveler may have in a self-driving car. My study illustrates the relationship between interregional surface transportation and the aviation system by estimating the number of travelers who may choose to travel long distances to access a relatively busier, larger airport with better service. The results of this study help to shape the evolving role of airport managers in controlling demand and delay at major hub airports and in building and managing air service and smaller airports across the U.S. as automotive technology advances.
In the following study, we seek to uncover a) the factors that could have encouraged leakage in specific air markets in the U.S. (i.e., changes in relative air service and air fare levels at airports 100-300 miles apart since the mid-2000s) and b) the leakage magnitude, specifically the number of air travelers with a higher likelihood of choosing a distant, larger airport than their local airport. We scale the magnitude as a function of the current surface transportation flows and the airport demands such that the scale of the leakage through the past eight years is established. The results of this study help to shape the evolving role of airport managers in controlling demand and delay at hub airports and in building and managing air service at smaller airports across the U.S. We review the relevant literature, including the precipitating events in the aviation system that led to possible service and fare imbalances at relatively larger and relatively smaller airports and the body of literature that directly addresses traveler airport and airport access mode choice and airport market leakage. Then I go over study geographies and evaluate the relative changes in service and airfares at the airports over our study geographies, then present methodology and estimate the quantity of passengers leaking to a distant airport and present our findings, for our study geographies, on the number of travelers leaked from a relatively small to a relatively large airport. These estimates enable us to compare the volume of traffic generated by leaked passengers and existing highway volumes on the most-likely traffic route of each passenger. I will then explore implications of airport market leakage with automated and advanced vehicles, and then conclude with a discussion about the role of airports in managing their changing congestion levels and catchment areas.
June - August 2017: Estimate models and write up results September - December 2018: Simulate results based on vehicle automation and write up results
2 publications planned: one in Transportation Research Part A and another in a review journal. Also, give media interviews, and I gave a TedXPenn Talk in April 2017 related to this topic
-- 2 publications, talks, and follow-on research
Name | Affiliation | Role | Position | |
---|---|---|---|---|
mryerson@upenn.edu | Ryerson, Megan | University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program | PI | Other |
rtawfik@wharton.upenn.edu | Tawfik, Raouf | University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program | Other | Student - Undergrad |
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