| Abstrakt: |
Purpose: The implementation of Air Transport Deregulation Process in Europe (supported by 3 deregulation and liberalization legislative “packages”, adopted by the EU governing authorities in 1987, 1990 and 1993) led to the origin and expansion of low-cost carriers (LCC) and provided them with the opportunity to create new dynamics in the market, add routes and frequencies in many European airports, mainly the ones where the charter operation had more expression for several decades. With ubiquitous networks, covering European Union, Balkan countries and North Africa, LCCs nowadays have a strong presence at many national and international markets, offering growing trends of network development and passenger traffic numbers, offering lower fares to different destinations which helped the development of a bigger market. Altogether with the development of the market, European LCCs had created along the last two decades, new business strategies, not only based on the provision of lower fares and simple product and service, but also on the adequate development of new operational bases in many different countries and airports (based on terms and conditions offered by airports and regional authorities), helping them to enter in different markets and develop new routes and services. The strategy development resulted in the airlines’ expansion of routes and network along the continent, creating a new demand, development of new service concepts at the airports (i.e. ground handling), creating more job opportunities and new tourism services. The existing research proves the pertinence of the topic of the impact of LCCs at national (Portugal (Costa, Almeida, 2015), Spain (Rey, Myro, Galera, 2011), Malta (Graham, Dennis, 2010).), Croatia (Mandic, Petric, 2017), and international (European Union) scales. The main objectives of this research are: i) to analyze the spatial structure and connectivity of the operational bases of Ryanair, the largest European low-cost carrier, in Europe and North Africa; ii) to investigate the impact of the carriers’ operating base opening or closure of passenger traffic (and, as a result, on airport hierarchy). Methodology: The methodology of the present investigation has different steps:i) In order to evaluate the historical dynamics and current number of operational bases of Ryanair in European airports, the authors collected the data directly from the corporate Ryanair website and at annual reports; in order to check all the new open bases and also closed bases, the previous financial reports of the airline had been monitored, as well as airports’ official web pages and related media sources (i.e. local newspapers, reports, etc.). ii) In order to assess the operating bases’ connectivity, authors examined the number of routes available per each operational base for Summer 2023 Schedule in order to understand the structural and geographic peculiarities of routes and destinations offered per airport and per country (the data was also obtained from the Ryanair website). iii) In order to evaluate the impact of the opening (or closure) of the airlines’ operating base on passenger traffic, the authors collected data about the number of passengers per airport in the year before the operational base opening and after two years. The data was collected from airports web pages of national statistic offices. iv) The analysis of changes in the airport hierarchy is based on the dynamics of passenger traffic (number of passengers carried); airports categories are taken from the European Commissions’ “Atlas of the Sky” information portal (EC, 2023). The collected data was structured in database, part of which was imported into geospatial software for further spatial data analysis and visualization (GIS mapping was carried in ArcGIS 10.4). Results: The collected data allow authors to understand the spatial patterns of the network created by Ryanair during the last two decades. The model of the geographic concentration of the operational bases, that was designed for 2009, 2020, and 2023 had proved the territorial expansion of the network of bases and outlined the areas with the highest density of the operational bases (with 2 types of spatial clusters - economic and financial centers, tourist destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
