Modelling Network Contribution Under Changing Capacity For A Hub & Spoke Carrier

Abstract

The main characteristic of a hub-and-spoke network is that many passengers will reach their final destination via a connection at the hub, instead of a direct flight in case of a point-to-point network. An airline operating such a hub-and-spoke network thus has a significant ratio of transfer passengers on its flights. This means that each flight leg or route should be viewed as part of a greater system rather than an individual item. The use of a hub-and-spoke network entails that air travel demand is defined for an OD market, while the supply is provided in the form of flight leg departures in the network. This implies that there exists a dichotomy of airline demand and supply in an individual OD market. Currently, most of the airlines base their performance assessment on a route-based analysis. How-ever, since one flight leg or route may serve multiple itineraries through the network, not only the performance of that individual flight leg or route has to be analyzed but also the role of the flight leg or route in the network. Despite of the fact that some research on this subject has already been performed, a network-based performance analysis is still not commonly used by airlines operating a hub-and-spoke network. This entails that an airline operating a hub-and-spoke network, such as Kenya Airways, is not capable of fully analyzing the performance of their routes considering its value in the network. This research is contributing to the problem, that airlines operating a hub-and-spoke network are not able to fully analyze the performance of their routes considering its value in the network, by perform-ing a more comprehensive assessment of the contribution of a flight leg or route to a greater system. This is referred to as the Network Contribution concept. Besides the analysis of the pure cancellation of a segment or route, the Network Contribution has also been analyzed under adjustment in capacity, without changing the capacity to zero. The capacity is changed by changing the frequency on a route, or changing the type of aircraft operated on a route.