مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد پیشرف فرودگاه محموله هوایی در مناطق داخلی کشور

مقاله سال 2016

For decades, major airports around the world have predominantly served passenger markets (Mayer, 2016), and thus their operations and infrastructure were designed primarily to meet the needs of passengers.1 Such airports are also referred to as “gateway airports”. 2 Most gateway airports (and airlines) serve passengers first, with their remaining capacity serving air cargo. This phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that the volume of air cargo is not sufficiently large to reach a critical mass. To a great extent, air cargo plays a complementary role for passengers, filling the excess capacity of aircraft.

Along with cargo growth at gateway airports, costs in the gateway cities have been increasing (reality in most international cities). Consequently, manufacturing and logistics enterprises relocate further into the hinterland, resulting in a growing distance between the manufacturing base and the gateway airport.3 The longer travel times and added complexities in logistics management are not conducive to the efficient and timely delivery of goods. This expansion creates potential problems for shippers who might look for alternative gateways, modes of transport or relocate their factories in the long run. In response, some governments have built airports in their respective hinterlands e referred to as “hinterland airports” in this paper e dedicated to the transport of airfreight,4 as hinterland airports can leverage the comparative advantage of their proximity to shippers.5 Because of the emphasis on freight, most airlines in hinterland airports use airfreight-dedicated aircraft (e.g., Boeing’s 747-400F/ERF and 777F) but not combination flights, focusing on passenger traffic with cargo traffic as a side business. Therefore, airline operations at hinterland airports might lack synergy between their passenger and cargo businesses, and network coverage may be less comprehensive than that of gateway airports.

In this paper, we develop an analytical model to examine the social benefits of introducing hinterland airports and to analyze the competition and collaboration between the gateway and hinterland airports. The model captures the following features: demand and cost complementarities for the passenger and cargo markets, airline competition, hub/gateway premiums, and intermodal connections. A numerical analysis is conducted using real-life data from the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in China, where the Hong Kong airport serves as a gateway airport and the Shenzhen airport serves as a hinterland airport. We investigate the following questions: What are the welfare implications of introducing a cargodedicated airport in the hinterland for different stakeholders? Should the gateway and hinterland airports cooperate or compete with each other from the social-welfare point of view? How do coordination and competition affect the benefits of the various stakeholders?