abstract

This study provides insight into how aviation and non-aviation factors affect the decision to suspend air routes. Using examples from Australian domestic routes, the paper analyses the business relationships and negotiation processes followed by airports, airlines, and destination management organizations (DMOs) to avoid air route suspensions. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with key aviation and tourism stakeholders directly impacted by suspended routes. The outcomes of this paper demonstrate that while most of the major reasons for air route suspension in Australia are mentioned in existing literature and are linked to demand, other factors have not previously been deeply investigated, including how stakeholders can be involved to avoid air route suspension. The paper also explores and identifies strengths and weaknesses in the relationship among airlines, DMOs and airports.

5. Conclusion

This research set out to address two specific objectives for investigation of the suspension of domestic air routes in Australia. These research objectives were to identify and discuss the main factors in air route suspension in the Australian domestic scheduled aviation market and to identify and discuss the main roles of directly related stakeholdersdairports, airlines and DMOsdin the process. In relation to the first objective, we found that the literature suggests most of the factors and that they are almost all related to demand (Calderon, 1997
). Lack of demand is a consequence of other factors, such as profitability, seasonality, and socio-economic factors. The interviews confirmed these factors. However, while the literature notes factors such as physical geography (Calderon, 1997
) and business strategies (Brueckner, 2001), the interviewees did not emphasize these aspects. Other factors not mentioned by the interviewees were the role of airline network strategy, the end of incentives and new competitors. Most of the suspended routes analysed in Australia were outside the major domestic and international hubs of the country, i.e., Sydney and Melbourne, which emphasizes the ability of hubs to eventually better support routes considering the opportunities for cross-subsidization to feed profitable routes. In terms of incentive schemes, the routes analysed were not part of the Remote Air Service Subsidy Scheme (and equivalent state-level schemes) because in Australia they exist only to support accessibility to very remote rural and indigenous communities, usually with weekly flights only.