Consumer choice behaviour and strategies of air transportation service providers

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of air traveller’s itinerary choice in Europe. The analysis is based on three datasets, which cover altogether 70 origin-destination pairs in Europe. These OD-pairs differ in many aspects such as geographic coverage, number of available connections, number of transfers and travel time. The first dataset contains itinerary fares collected from the Web in the period September-November 2006 for flights departing in November 2006. The second dataset contains the booked travel itineraries in November 2006 through customer reservation systems. Finnaly, detailed itinerary information is obtained from the Official Airline Guide (OAG) By matching these three datasets, a data set has been derived that will allow to model the influence of several variables, e.g. departure time, travel time, code shares, number of transfers and fare, on the itinerary choice in air transport. With the derived data set, it is possible to construct a choice set with the alternatives an air traveller faced at the booking day. Estimated models include models with the sensitivity of air travellers for fare over time and per duration of stay. Also, a continuous departure time function is implemented in the choice model.