Spatial structure and network behaviour of strategic airline groups: A comparison between Europe and the United States

Hans Huber

Transport Policy, 2009, vol. 16, issue 4, 151-162

Abstract: The Gini-index has gained in legitimacy when measuring traffic distributions of air traffic as compared to other more established measures, such as Herfindahl's. In order to render the index more meaningful for policy-makers, a partial decomposition into strategic groups of airlines along distinct geopolitical scopes of air traffic is suggested. Air traffic across airports is considered an aggregate of complex networks that are subject to multiple constraints, such as geopolitics or technology. A multi-layered analytic approach accounts for network operators as economic agents that behave in strategic ways within these constraints. Our approach allows for comparing traffic distributions in Europe with that of the US and, in particular, introduces a normative component by isolating patterns in airlines' strategies that are likely to induce different degrees of spatial concentration and balanced traffic distributions within these common markets.

Keywords: Spatial; concentration; Gini; decomposition; Network; competition; Geopolitical; traffic; distribution; Complex; networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967-070X(09)00063-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:trapol:v:16:y:2009:i:4:p:151-162

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Policy is currently edited by Y. Hayashi

More articles in Transport Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().