The Impact of Airline Flight Schedules on Flight Delays

被引:81
作者
Deshpande, Vinayak [1 ]
Arikan, Mazhar [2 ]
机构
[1] Univ N Carolina, Kenan Flagler Business Sch, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 USA
[2] Univ Kansas, Sch Business, Lawrence, KS 66045 USA
关键词
flight delays; flight schedules; newsvendor model; forecasting; ON-TIME PERFORMANCE; AIR-TRAFFIC DELAYS; SERVICE QUALITY; MARKET SHARE; COMPETITION; INDUSTRY; ENTRY; DETERMINANTS; DEMAND;
D O I
10.1287/msom.1120.0379
中图分类号
C93 [管理学];
学科分类号
12 ; 1201 ; 1202 ; 120202 ;
摘要
Airline flight delays have come under increased scrutiny lately in the popular press, with the Federal Aviation Administration data revealing that airline on-time performance was at its worst level in 13 years in 2007. Flight delays have been attributed to several causes such as weather conditions, airport congestion, airspace congestion, use of smaller aircraft by airlines, etc. In this paper, we examine the impact of the scheduled block time allocated for a flight, a factor controlled by airlines, on on-time arrival performance. We analyze empirical flight data published by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics to estimate the scheduled on-time arrival probability of each commercial domestic flight flown in the United States in 2007 by a major carrier. The structural estimation approach from econometrics is then used to impute the overage to underage cost ratio of the newsvendor model for each flight. Our results show that airlines systematically "underemphasize" flight delays, i.e., the flight delay costs implied by the newsvendor model are less than the implied costs of early arrivals for a large fraction of flights. Our results indicate that revenue drivers (e.g., average fare) and competitive measures (e.g., market share) have a significant impact on the scheduled on-time arrival probability. We also show that the scheduled on-time arrival probability is not positively affected by the total number of passengers on the aircraft rotation who could be affected by a flight delay, or the number of incoming and outgoing connecting passengers on a flight. Operational characteristics such as the hub and spoke network structure also have a significant impact on the scheduled on-time arrival probability. Finally, full-service airlines put a higher weight on the cost of late arrivals than do low-cost carriers, and flying on the lowest fare flight on a route results in a drop in the scheduled on-time arrival probability.
引用
收藏
页码:423 / 440
页数:18
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