Interpreting economic data - taking off: the development of the air travel industry in the United States

摘要

Most products go through a life-cycle with certain common features across a wide rangeudof different industries. In the early stages a new product has relatively few outlets and isudoften viewed as a luxury item by consumers. Sales are therefore low and prices are highudwhen it first appears on the market. However, as the product becomes established,udproduction methods are standardised, costs and prices fall and it gradually takes on theudcharacteristics of a mass-market good. This leads to a period of rapid growth which levelsudoff as sales reach the potential capacity of the market. At this time the market mayudstabilise or even go into a period of decline as rival products enter the market or as lowudcost foreign competition replaces domestic production.udIn this article we will discuss the product life-cycle for domestic air travel in the UnitedudStates. This is an interesting industry because air travel has only existed for about the lastudeighty years and so we have accurate statistics which allow us to trace out itsuddevelopment from an infant to a mature industry. The plan of the article is as follows. Inudthe next section we seek to identify the key stages of transition for this industry. This isudfollowed by an assessment of the effects of the business cycle on this market in its matureudstage of development. Finally, we present some overall conclusions and some questionsudfor further discussion.