Behavioural models or airport choice and air route choice

An understanding of air passenger route choice is crucial for airport capacity planning. Development of main and regional airports, as well as changes in the road and rail transport system for airport access, will influence the relative demand for flights from competing airports, Changes in the frequency and price of flights from the various airports are also expected to result from deregulation, airline mergers and aircraft technology improvements. This chapter describes a study undertaken by Hague Consulting Group for The Netherlands Civil Aviation Authority. The purpose of the study was to collect and analyse market data to provide models of air traveller route choice. Using Stated Preference (SP) survey methods, models were created for the choice between competing departure airports and, when relevant, the choice between direct and transfer flights. These models will be used to analyse future demand for Amsterdam Schiphol airport and for regional airports in the Netherlands. The chapter contains a discussion of the issues involved in the analysis of air traveller's route choice, summarises the design and execution of a SP experiment among passengers at Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Brussels airports, describes analyses done on the survey data, including the segmentation of the passenger market based on journey purpose and destination, presents choice models estimated using the SP data and provides a discussion of the results and their usefulness in planning.