The airline industry is the central part of the commercial aviation value and supply chain. Nevertheless, it has the lowest profit margin and return on investment compared to other sectors in the chain. This leads to the question whether the airline industry is sustainable in the long run, the...

Almost 20 years after passage of the US Airline Deregulation Act, air transport regulatory liberalization has made inroads on all continents. But even as deregulation is still spreading, there are also calls for some form of re-regulation. The reasons are diverse and not necessarily consistent....

There are currently divergent trends in the regulation of airports in Germany. While traditionally airports have been regulated by cost-based regulation, a price cap regulation for Hamburg airport has been implemented in 2000. Given the objectives of economic welfare and efficiency the paper...

This paper compares the decisions of the European Commission on airline merger cases. The authors provide an overview of the merger decisions between 1996 and 2009 and analyze the definitions of the relevant market applied in each case. First, it considers the relevant market definition develop...

Recent years have seen a global trend towards the emergence of multi-airport companies operating at a global scale. This paper employs industrial and transaction costs economics to identify the main drivers that shape the patterns of international cross-ownership structures that have emerged in...

This paper explores the relevance of spatial effects on airport competition. Drawing concentric circles of travel distances around it is the most commonly way to define an airport’s catchment area. The characteristics of the catchment area and available substitutes are compared, and...

The paper examines the case of Alitalia, Italy’s former flag carrier, as a case of a state-managed failure. The history of the airline is characterized by a continuous decline in its competitive position since the progressive liberalization of the European aviation market. The root cause...

This paper analyzes the performance of the Central and Eastern Europe airline industry through the lens of the “Permanently Failing Organization†(PFO) framework. Based on elite interviews from management in the three airlines but also from other organizations within the industry, it...

The European airport industry is subject to various forms of economic regulation and there is debate as to which of the systems provides the best incentives for allocative and productive efficiency. This paper deals with the applicability of benchmarking as a regulatory tool for airports. This...