Anarchy In The Airways

In his dialogue - Anarchy In The Airways - Joseph C. Von Kornfeld, Assistant Professor, College of Hotel Administration, University of Nevada, Las Vegas initially states: “Deregulation of the airline industry has brought about financial vulnerability for the traveling public. The author analyzes the situation since that point in time and makes recommendations for some solutions.” In this article, Assistant Professor Von Kornfeld, first defines the airline industry in its pre-regulated form. Then he goes into the ramifications and results of deregulating the industry, both in regards to the consumer, and in deregulation’s impact on the airlines themselves. “The most dramatic consequence of the pressures and turbulence of airline deregulation has been the unprecedented proliferation of airline bankruptcies,” Von Kornfeld informs. “Prior to the deregulation of the U.S. airline industry in 1978, U.S. air carriers operated in a business environment that was insulated from the normal stresses and strains of open competition. They were restricted from actively competing with fares and routings by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB),” Von Kornfeld says. In leveling the playing field, Von Kornfeld offers, “Each carrier was restricted to specific geographic routes, with those routes limited to two or three competing carriers. The only thing that set carriers apart in this CAB defined atmosphere was their ability to either advertise, or to enhance their level of service; or both. “…ultimately paid for by the passenger through fare increases sanctioned by the CAB,” Von Kornfeld states. “Airline service standards were unquestionably superior during the regulated environment,” Von Kornfeld renders an interesting observation. He does mention, however, that carrier safety was also considered a concern immediately prior to, and then after deregulation. “The major controversy focused on the allegation that safety and maintenance standards would be compromised due to the financial pressures brought about by an openly competitive environment,” Von Kornfeld says. Pricing, as well as labor unions are important factors in the equation, and Von Kornfeld addresses their relevance in the deregulated environment. “The primary rationalization for deregulation was to facilitate a more openly competitive environment. The increased competition was to ultimately have benefitted the consumer. Ironically, that’s not entirely the case, Von Kornfeld elaborates. In addressing some of the negative aspects of airline deregulation, Von Kornfeld suggests that some sort of federal re-regulation may be in order.

Aviation safety : needed improvements in FAA's airline inspection program are underway : report to Congressional requesters.

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Attribute exclusion strategies in airline choice : accounting for exogenous information on decision maker processing strategies in models of discrete choice

We examine the impact of individual-specific information processing strategies (IPSs) on the inclusion/exclusion of attributes on the parameter estimates and behavioural outputs of models of discrete choice. Current practice assumes that individuals employ a homogenous IPS with regards to how they process attributes of stated choice (SC) experiments. We show how information collected exogenous of the SC experiment on whether respondents either ignored or considered each attribute may be used in the estimation process, and how such information provides outputs that are IPS segment specific. We contend that accounting the inclusion/exclusion of attributes will result in behaviourally richer population parameter estimates.

A framework for evaluating the European airline costs of disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility

In recent years, airlines have been servicing a greater variety, and increasing numbers, of disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility (PRMs), particularly associated with ageing, obesity and medical needs. With the quantity of PRMs likely to increase in the future, there will be a growing impact on the airlines' associated actual and opportunity costs, about which there is minimal literature and data. Therefore the aim of this paper is to identify standard functional key factors (FKFs) with which airlines could audit their PRMs costs, and which could be used by other interested bodies, such as governments, when considering relevant aviation policy. These FKFs are related to nine areas, namely PRMs’ transfers; mobility aids; aircraft delays/diversions costs; staff training costs; staff health, safety and welfare; aircraft fixtures and equipment costs; airport costs; transaction costs; and opportunity costs. Further research is needed to obtain the data for these FKFs.

Data Mining in Promoting Flight Safety

The incredible rapid development to huge volumes of air travel, mainly because of jet airliners that appeared to the sky in the 1950s, created the need for systematic research for aviation safety and collecting data about air traffic. The structured data can be analysed easily using queries from databases and running theseresults through graphic tools. However, in analysing narratives that often give more accurate information about the case, mining tools are needed. The analysis of textual data with computers has not been possible until data mining tools have been developed. Their use, at least among aviation, is still at a moderate level. The research aims at discovering lethal trends in the flight safety reports. The narratives of 1,200 flight safety reports from years 1994 – 1996 in Finnish were processed with three text mining tools. One of them was totally language independent, the other had a specific configuration for Finnish and the third originally created for English, but encouraging results had been achieved with Spanish and that is why a Finnish test was undertaken, too. The global rate of accidents is stabilising and the situation can now be regarded as satisfactory, but because of the growth in air traffic, the absolute number of fatal accidents per year might increase, if the flight safety will not be improved. The collection of data and reporting systems have reached their top level. The focal point in increasing the flight safety is analysis. The air traffic has generally been forecasted to grow 5 – 6 per cent annually over the next two decades. During this period, the global air travel will probably double also with relatively conservative expectations of economic growth. This development makes the airline management confront growing pressure due to increasing competition, signify cant rise in fuel prices and the need to reduce the incident rate due to expected growth in air traffic volumes. All this emphasises the urgent need for new tools and methods. All systems provided encouraging results, as well as proved challenges still to be won. Flight safety can be improved through the development and utilisation of sophisticated analysis tools and methods, like data mining, using its results supporting the decision process of the executives.

A Best Practice Process for Fleet Safety Training

This paper outlines a process for fleet safety training based on research and management development programmes undertaken at the University of Huddersfield in the UK (www.hud.ac.uk/sas/trans/transnews.htm) and CARRS-Q in Australia (www.carrsq.qut.edu.au/staff/Murray.jsp) over the past 10 years.