Air transport

The air transport is the economic sector which gathers all the activities of transport in the plane or the helicopters.

Trades

It consists is:

to convey passengers or freight for regular lines. This activity as well recovers airline companies which have only one apparatus conveying some tourists for an island distant from a few kilometers of the continent as of the companies which have hundreds of apparatuses, carry out several thousands of flights per day, transport tens of million passengers or tons of freight per annum at distances which can reach 12 to 13000 kilometers.
with affrêter of the planes to the profit of organizers of voyages.

Regular commercial air transport

For the passengers this name recovers the sale of single tickets for a following accomplished transport of the schedules and the fixed routes.

For freight this name recovers the routing of parcel between definite zones and within guaranteed times.

Companies

Certain companies are classified as:

conveying regional: their fleet forwards the passengers to a large airport in a radius of 100 to 250 kilometers;
conveying interior: their fleet circulates inside a country;
conveying international: their fleet joint several countries even several continents.

Commercial air transport is practiced between airports equipped with installations specific to the treatment of the passengers and freight. It tries to be freed from the weather conditions: all the flights are accomplished under flying conditions without visibility (IFR) and under air control. The activity is very regulated, the pilots are professionals subjected to the programmed renewal of their license, the apparatuses are certified and subjected to periodic controls and the flight is carried out in connection with the air-traffic controllers by respecting roads envisaged.

Virtual companies

virtual Airline company

Apparatuses

The apparatuses used are at least twin-engine (rules IFR). They can transport to 580 passengers, soon 800 for A380 in maximum configuration, at distances reaching: 14000 with: 17400 kilometers (with the Boeing 777-200LG). The technical crew consists of a pilot and a copilot. The automation of the apparatuses of navigation, radiocommunication and control of the flight made almost disappear the functions from flight engineer, navigator and radio. The comfort and the safety of the passengers are ensured by the personnel of cabin says also Commercial Sailing Personnel. The regulation imposes a PNC by section of 50 passengers starting from the twentieth passenger but there can be more for trade names.

Schedules

The airline companies sell head offices X kilometers. They have thus two requirements

to make fly the plane as much as possible;
to fill the plane.

As example one will find below the constraints of establishment of a schedule for a transatlantic flight between Paris and New York. These data are valid (with adjustments) for practically all the transatlantic flights between the capitals of Western Europe and the cities of the east coast of the United States from Boston to Miami while passing by Chicago. They are also valid for the flights between the east coast and the west coast of the United States. These two groups of lines represent the lines charged (as a passenger X kilometers) for the beginning with the 21e century.

Assumptions:

Lasted of the flight Paris - New York: 8 hours (less 6 hours of jet lag)
Lasted of the flight New York - Paris: 7 hours (more 6 hours of jet lag)
Immobilization at the stopover: 2 hours to unload the passengers, the luggage and freight to clean, restock and take on board the passengers.
Closing of the airports of Paris and New York: 00:00 with 06:00 hours

The examination of the table below watch which there exist practically only two possibilities for this way:

Departure of Paris to 06:00, arrival NYC with 08:00. Redécollage with 10:00 and arrival in Paris with 23:00. The plane can be revised during the night before a new departure with 06:00.
Departure of Paris at the end of the morning (of 10:00 to 14:00), arrived at NYC in end of the afternoon. Redécollage in evening for a night flight and an arrival in Paris in the morning.

In fact only the PanAm company proposed a flight London - New York using the first formula (until its bankruptcy). Currently all the flights of all the transatlantic companies are proposed according to the second formula. The schedules of closing of airport and the reserve of the passengers to take a plane before 07:00 or to arrive after 22:00 explain the absence of choice.

Platform of correspondence or " hub"

One of the factors sought by the potential passenger is the brevity of the voyage and thus the preference for the direct flights between the starting airport and that of destination. When the traffic is sufficient, the companies propose flights then known as " directs".

Between a town of average importance and a big city, a fortiori between two towns of average importance, the traffic is not always sufficient to justify an air link. The passenger is then obliged to carry out one, even several correspondences.

The airline companies realized that they had interest to attract these passengers to increase the profitability of their hot lines in their providing a continuous service between the starting airport, the airport of correspondence, the airport of destination. The concept which results from this calls " hub" in English; French translation " platform of correspondance" is used little.

The first companies to use this concept are the American companies which, at the end of the XXe century had practically a whole a " hub". As example company TWA (now disappeared) used the airport of Saint-Louis located at the third Is of the United States. A score of planes in source mainly of the east coast (from Boston to Miami) arrived practically simultaneously at Saint-Louis at the same time as an identical group arrived from the cities of the west coast and the South (from Dallas to Seattle). All these flights arrived and set out again in a crenel of approximately 90 minutes repeated four times during the day. This made it possible the company to publish a schedule of several hundreds of connections " programmées".

The network of the American companies is strongly dependant on one or more " hub (S) ". The largest airports of the United States are the turntable of one of the large companies; Chicago and United Airlines, Atlanta and Delta Airlines are the best examples. In Europe certain companies try to establish the concept; Paris-CDG and Air France, Clermont-Ferrand and Regional, London-Heathrow and British Airways, London-Stansted and Ryanair, Frankfurt and Lufthansa.

The regular transport of freight called to him also largely upon the concept of hub . In France, the Post office exploits a network the Postal one of night which forwards the mail of the province to Paris at the beginning of night. The transshipment of the bags is carried out at Paris and the planes set out again towards the province at the end of the night. In theory, the mail posted in any point of the territory the D-day is delivered in any other point the J+1 day. In the United States the company Federal Express train was the first to generalize the concept with large scales very. It has a center of distribution in Tennessee. The company guarantees the routing of a parcel of 24 hours between two unspecified points of the continental American territory.

Divide of code

Translation of English code sharing . This concept recovers in fact two different commercial tactics:

the large American companies are allied with certain regional companies, those which served to them hub to increase the number of programmed correspondences and to thus increase their market potential. These large companies revealed the flights under their code, the passenger realizing with the foot of the plane that it embarked in a small plane of an unknown company. Defense associations of the consumers stigmatize these practices and obtained that the ticket explicitly mentions the name of the company operator of the vol.
on certain connections of the companies can join to propose the same flight under several labels. This practice became current since the creation of the " alliances" between company and, as example, when Aéroport of Paris post a flight Air France (AF1438), a flight Continental Airlines (CO6054), a flight Delta Airlines (DL8336) and a flight Austrian Airlines (OS7114) newcomer of Vienna to 11:40 the every day it is acted in fact of a A320 Airbus of Air France in division of code . To note, moreover, that each one of these companies applies its own marketing policy what multiplies by 4 the already high number of tariffs available for the same vol.

Alliances

See the detailed article Alliance of airline companies.

Since end of the year 1990 of many airline companies gather within alliances. In theory, these companies are chosen to offer complementary networks covering the whole of the world. Associated with the division of code , this practice enables them to multiply the number of flights offered under their name.

For the passenger, the advantage is double. The multiplication of the number of hub enables him to traverse the world with consequently assured programmed correspondences airline company, even if in practice the flights which they will borrow are ensured by different companies. Moreover allied companies gathered under the same label them Programme of development of consumer loyalty; the passenger can accumulate points premiums throughout his voyage.

Companies low-cost

The initial concept is allotted to the American company Southwest Airlines. Having reduced the services on board to the distribution of a peanut sachet the companies at low cost gained there the nickname of peanut airlines , pun quasi untranslatable because peanut = peanut but also, in slang, not large thing .

In theory, the regulation concerning the crews and the material are the same one for all the companies. They cannot thus realize savings on the maintenance or the reduction of the labor. The reduction of the costs is thus obtained by:

the fall of the wages of the personnel technical and commercial flying personnel as well as ground personnel (often sub-contracted at a company of airport assistance.);
the sale of the tickets on Internet or by telephone: the commission poured at the travel agency is normally about 8% of the price of the ticket. Moreover simplification of the tariffs suggested (on a date of reservation given only one price is available for a given flight) the productivity of the salesmen increases;
nonrefundable, nonmodifiable, nonexchangeable tickets (except penalties): the cost of a change of reservation, if it is authorized, is reflected on the customer;
use of secondary airports: the repercussion of the airport taxes in the price of the ticket represents approximately 50€ for an international flight starting from an airport such as Paris-CDG, approximately 10€ only if the flight starts from a regional airport such as Beauvais (to 70 km of Paris);
reduction of the services on the ground: reduction in the schedules of opening of the services of the company to airport etc;
reduction of the frankness luggage: 15 kg (strictly applied) instead of 20 kg on the majority of the traditional companies, even more;
point-to-point flight only: the company sells tickets on direct ways. The passengers in correspondence must buy two tickets. The company does not guarantee the correspondence;
reduction of the services in flight: no free service (newspapers, meal, etc) from where reduction in the corresponding loads and less cleaning to be carried out between two flights. The absence of zone cooks (known as " galleys") also allows to gain one or two lines of seats;
elongation of the time beach and reduction of times on the ground: the first flights take place (06 earlier: 00) and the last later (24: 00) but it is especially the profit between two flights which is significant. The duration of rotation is reduced to 30 minutes between the unloading and the loading of the passengers, times of cleaning of the apparatus included. Added to the reduction of the latencies on takeoff and the landing by using secondary airports a company at low cost can make carry out more than 6 inter-European flights per day with a plane compared with 4 or 5 in a traditional company.

It as should be noted as the companies at low cost practice the price of call . As example a way (Paris) - Beauvais - Dublin can vary between 25 and 250 € including all taxes over one 15 days period following the date and the hour of the voyage. This last price can be obtained on a traditional company with good less restrictions;

finally some practical advertizing executives such as the announced prices net of tax and except insurances , the payment by the customer of the expenses of use of the credit cards and the subsidies granted by certain areas or certain airports make it possible to reduce the apparent cost but are the subject of complaints by consumers' associations and became illegal in certain European countries.

Apart from their policy of reduction of the costs , the companies at low cost adopted a marketing policy of market segmentation different from the normal companies . In these last, the privileged customer is the businessman which agrees to pay not only to also travel comfortably but for flexible reservations and an absence of restrictions. N the other hand this customer wants schedules practical, daily, etc what involves a risk of low level of filling of certain flights. The company thus will propose flights with cheap rates to fill the flight, but she wants to prevent that the privileged customer benefits from it. The solution consists in segmenting the offer, i.e. to propose to cheap rates with customers not businessman from where the student tariffs , seniors, etc or tourist with stay of obligatory duration fixed at destination. The companies at low cost practice, as for them, a segmentation of the request. The price of the ticket is same whatever the type of passenger and the duration of the stay does not return in account since the tickets are not return ticket: the price depends only on the date and of the hour of the flight and the adjustment of the proposals is made, sometimes from day to day, according to the request.

Affrêtement Charter

Affrêtement consists in selling a complete flight (maximum number of passengers) with a date and on a given destination. The flight is generally bought by organizers of voyage who resell it dry or more usually accompanied by other services (hotel trade, circuit, etc) This activity obeys, on the lawful level, with the same constraints as scheduled passenger air transport. To reduce the cost of the ticket the companies call upon the same principles as the companies at low cost. An important difference remains: the companies of affrêtement directly do not sell their tickets and the passenger is often unaware of on which companies it will carry out his way. This practice encourages the organizers of voyage to call upon conveyers of which reliability and safety are sometimes dubious. If there exist large companies having well-established in this activity, one finds there also a crowd of small companies based in countries less looking on the application of the regulation, renting old apparatuses reformed by regular airline companies etc

The relatively high rate of accidents is at the origin of the doubts of the public with respect to these companies. In spite of these pressures there does not exist (in France, beginning of the year 2000) any specific measure of transparency obliging the organizers of voyage to inform the customer, at the time of the purchase, the performances of the company used as regards reliability.

Traffic (given 2005)

The diagram shows that in 2004 the area North America, the United States in particular, represents with it only a double traffic of that of Europe or area the Asia-Pacific (Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc). If one adds the transatlantic and transpacific traffic to it one notes that the world traffic is largely dominated by the American companies. This explains why the whole of the regulations, concepts commercial etc are of American origin. For example, alliances of airline companies were created initially starting from a duet between an American company and a European company.

The world traffic exists especially with the center and between the most developed countries. The African continent is almost completely absent with regard to the traffic interns and appears primarily only for the exchanges between Europe and North Africa.

The growth of the traffic on the 10 last years and the forecasts on the 10 next ones shows a stability of the relationship between the data. The rate of increase in the traffic in the Asia-Pacific zone is however higher than that of Europe and this area could become the second of the classification. The Chinese traffic, relatively weak today, has a growth rate such as it could with him only adjust certain forecasts.

Impact of air transport on the greenhouse effect

Air transport is a large contributor of the whole of gases with greenhouse effect. A passenger who carries out on a plane long modern mail, for example a A340-600 airbus which one supposes full, consumes 240 liters of kerosene on a distance from: 6495 kilometers (average distance from an international flight). In fact, as it is more realistic to consider a rate of filling of 70% or 80%, the order of magnitude of consumption are of 5 liters per passenger and 100 kilometers .

Safety

See also: Air security, Safety in the airports

According to the International association of air transport (IATA), the rate of air crash would be of an accident for 1,5 million flights in 2006 for the flights operated by Western apparatuses. 77 accidents took place in 2006, against 111 in 2005.

References

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