A Choice Experiment for Air Travel Services

摘要

Our purpose of this study is evaluating preferences for air travel services connected between the east and west central cities in Japan, Tokyo and Osaka, to consider the appropriate re-allocation design of airports in Japan. We employ a choice experiment and recruit more than 500 respondents in east and west areas in Japan and investigate their preferences. Our results are as follows. The existing airline connected west hub airport, Itami, in Osaka and east hub airport, Haneda, in Tokyo is much preferred to the other lines connected cities surrounding Osaka and Tokyo. Kobe and Kansai international airports are preferable to Itami airport, while Haneda is the much preferable to Ibaraki and Narita international airports. Increasing the mileage program and the availability of web check-in have positive significant effects but these impacts are small. These results imply that the most important factor for using air travel services is convenience for traveling by using the nearest airports. In this meaning, if the new airlines can be connected to Haneda, the government’s re-allocation plan from Itami airport to Kobe and Kansai international airports has a chance to succeed to minimize the economic efficiency loss for the people traveling between east and west areas in Japan.