A Network-Design Analysis of Airline Business Model Adaptation in the Face of Competition and Consolidation

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Author(s)
de Oliveira, Renan P
Oliveira, Alessandro VM
Lohmann, Gui
Year published
2021
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By focusing on the intrinsic relationship between business models and network configurations in the airline industry, this paper develops a two-stage methodology to estimate the strategic drivers of network design of the major carriers in Brazil. The empirical approach decomposes their domestic network-building rationales into the ones adopted by virtual archetypical carriers. We consider the previously conceived low-cost, full-service, and regional carrier archetypes. Our main contribution is the development of a model that allows airlines’ networks to be strategically designed in a time-evolving pattern, reflecting a ...
View more >By focusing on the intrinsic relationship between business models and network configurations in the airline industry, this paper develops a two-stage methodology to estimate the strategic drivers of network design of the major carriers in Brazil. The empirical approach decomposes their domestic network-building rationales into the ones adopted by virtual archetypical carriers. We consider the previously conceived low-cost, full-service, and regional carrier archetypes. Our main contribution is the development of a model that allows airlines’ networks to be strategically designed in a time-evolving pattern, reflecting a dynamically chosen blend of these archetypes. Moreover, we also consider the effects that mergers and acquisitions may have had in inducing changes in these blends. Our results suggest that all analyzed airlines have repositioned themselves through their trajectories to adopt a hybrid configuration, aiming at the intersection of at least two archetypical network-design rationales. Besides, the effects of consolidations point to certain diversions of the acquiring airlines’ domestic network-building rationales toward the ones of the acquired carriers, providing evidence that the consolidations may have served as stepping stones for market-repositioning moves.
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View more >By focusing on the intrinsic relationship between business models and network configurations in the airline industry, this paper develops a two-stage methodology to estimate the strategic drivers of network design of the major carriers in Brazil. The empirical approach decomposes their domestic network-building rationales into the ones adopted by virtual archetypical carriers. We consider the previously conceived low-cost, full-service, and regional carrier archetypes. Our main contribution is the development of a model that allows airlines’ networks to be strategically designed in a time-evolving pattern, reflecting a dynamically chosen blend of these archetypes. Moreover, we also consider the effects that mergers and acquisitions may have had in inducing changes in these blends. Our results suggest that all analyzed airlines have repositioned themselves through their trajectories to adopt a hybrid configuration, aiming at the intersection of at least two archetypical network-design rationales. Besides, the effects of consolidations point to certain diversions of the acquiring airlines’ domestic network-building rationales toward the ones of the acquired carriers, providing evidence that the consolidations may have served as stepping stones for market-repositioning moves.
View less >
Journal Title
Transportation Science
Copyright Statement
© 2021 INFORMS. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal website for access to the definitive, published version.
Note
This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.
Subject
Applied Mathematics
Transportation and Freight Services