Air Transport and Regional Development Case Studies

This book is one of three inter-connected books related to a four-year European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action established in 2015. The Action, called Air Transport and Regional Development (ATARD), aimed to promote a better understanding of how the air transport related problems of core regions and remote regions should be addressed in order to enhance both economic competitiveness and social cohesion in Europe.

This book focuses on case studies in Europe related to air transport and regional development. It is divided into four geographical regions after a general chapter that compares regional air transport connectivity between remote and central areas in Europe. The first region is Northern and Western Northern Europe (case studies related specifically to Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, and Ireland); the second is Central and Eastern Europe, (Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Poland); the third is Central Western Europe (Belgium and Switzerland); and finally, the fourth is Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, and Italy). There is no other single source publication that currently covers this topic area in such a comprehensive manner by considering so many countries.

The book aims at becoming a major reference on the topic, drawing from experienced researchers in the field, covering the diverse experience and knowledge of the members of the COST Action. The book will appeal to academics, practitioners, and policymakers who have a particular interest in acquiring detailed comparative knowledge and understanding of air transport and regional development in many different European countries. Together with the other two books (Air Transport and Regional Development Methodologies and Air Transport and Regional Development Policies), it fills a much-needed gap in the literature.

Anne Graham is Professor of Air Transport and Tourism Management at the University of Westminster, UK. She has two main research areas: first, airport management, economics, and regulation; and second, the relationship between the tourism and aviation sectors. She has published widely with recent books including Air Transport: A Tourism Perspective, Airport Finance and Investment in the Global Economy, Managing Airports: An International Perspective, The Routledge Companion to Air Transport Management, and Airport Marketing. She is a previous editor-in-chief of the Journal of Air Transport Management and in 2016 was made a fellow of the Air Transport Research Society.

Nicole Adler is Full Professor and Head of the Department of Operations Research and Operations Management at the School of Business Administration of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her major research interests include game theory and productivity estimation applied to the field of transportation. Her work has analysed hub-and-spoke airline competition and mergers, public service obligation tenders, and airport productivity, and she recently has utilised game theoretic concepts in order to understand air traffic control markets. Nicole is currently an Associate Editor for Transportation Research Part B: Methodological.

Hans-Martin Niemeier is Director of the Institute for Transport and Development at Bremen University of Applied Sciences, Germany. He is Chairman of the German Aviation Research Society and member of the Advisory Board of the European Aviation Conference. He chaired the ATARD COST Action from 2016–2019. From 2014 through May 2019, he was member of the Performance Review Body of the Single European Sky. He has published on privatisation, regulation, and competition of airports, the reform of slot allocation, and airline and airport alliances.

Ofelia Betancor is Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain). She holds an MSc in economics from the University of London, and two doctorate degrees in economics (Institute for Transport Studies-University of Leeds and University of Las Palmas). She has participated in many research projects at the national and international level, and has also collaborated with the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank as specialist in air transport and the economic evaluation of projects and transport policies. The results of her works have been published in leading journals in the area of transport economics.

António Pais Antunes is Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Coimbra (Portugal). He has been Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, Invited Professor at EPF Lausanne, Visiting Professor at MIT and a visiting researcher at the University of Bergamo. His teaching and research focus on public facility location, urban mobility (notably public transport and vehicle sharing), and air transport planning. He currently acts as Deputy Director of CITTA (Research Centre for Territory Transport and Environment) and as Coordinator of the Doctoral Programs in Spatial Planning and in Transport Systems at the University of Coimbra.

Volodymyr Bilotkach is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore. His research interests cover various issues in economics of the aviation sector including airline alliances and mergers, airport regulation, and the economics of distribution of airline tickets.

Enrique J. Calderón is a retired professor from the Department of Transport and Territorial Planning in the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain. He specialises in urban, regional, and environmental issues at all levels, sustainability assessment, and the integration of environmental concerns into government policies and programmes, notably in regard to transportation.

Gianmaria Martini is Full Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Bergamo, Italy. His research interests are applied econometrics and methods to estimate efficiency in the air transport sector, extended to environmental issues. Recent research activities have covered regional development and aviation, with a specific focus on African countries. He is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Air Transport Management and was the chairman of the organising committee of the 2013 Air Transport Research Society Conference in Bergamo. He has been nominated as vice president for publications of the ATRS.