DAILY DEMAND DISTRIBUTION FLIGHT PROGRAMME ATTRACTIVENESS FOR THE PASSENGERS ON A CITY PAIR

摘要

The daily number of flights operated by an airline on a route, peak hours at airports, wavesamplitude at hub airports, maximum daily flights to be offered to the customers on a route, numberof aircraft different types in a airline fleet, … this is a set of air transport issues which are stronglyrelated to each other and which are the direct or indirect consequence of the daily distribution of(business) demand on city pairs and how an airline manages to capture most of it.Statistical analysis and modelling cannot provide efficient enough tools for assessing the actualweight of the sole scheduling/frequency factor on the passenger choice as, for instance, the faresand the frequent flyer programmes do play a significant role. This is why we favour a behaviouralmodelling which would be based on the combined attractiveness of the local departure and arrivaltimes of a flight together with the bell shaped curve of the flight attractiveness over the day sincethe further the actual departure time from the desired one the lower the number of people willing totake it.This approach provides clues as to:1/ what is the maximum number of daily flights beyond which it does not pay off adding a newone?2/ when these flights should be operated over the day?3/ how the flight programme of 2 and more contenders affects their related market shares?4/ how this approach compares/complements with the S-curve theory of de Neufville, Lenoirand other prominent specialists?