Airport Air Service Development

Aim

The Airport Air Service Development course provides an in-depth understanding of retaining routes, expanding existing flights and attracting new air services to your airport. Air services drives all airport revenue sources and stimulates regional economic development growth including visitor expenditures and tax revenues. By providing new travel choices, increased competition, greater convenience and possibly lower fares, new travel and economic opportunities are generated for local businesses, residents and visitors. While air carriers are continually looking for new routes to serve, they do not always have the resources and local data to examine all potential routes. Airports play a critical role in bringing new route opportunities to the attention of carriers. In addition, the air service development strategy forms the basis for coordinating stakeholder support and ensuring that efforts and resources are focused on those opportunities with the greatest potential for success. Air service development is therefore a vital activity which should be at the centre of the strategic planning process for every airport.

Learning Objectives

Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Develop an effective Air Service Development Plan including: defining your air service strategy; assessing air travel market potential; identifying apparent air service deficiencies; benchmarking air services relative to selected peer airports in similar markets or ‘best in class’, and; assessing how current services meet the needs of your community.
• Ability to prepare a list of priority routes/regions not currently or adequately being served and to identify other strategic air service opportunities and how to incorporate this information to build a business plan to present to the airlines.
• Establish an air service development strategy
• Prepare an Air Service Business Cases

Target Audience

• Airport Director / Executive Management / Board Members
• Airport Marketing and Financial Managers
• Local and National Stakeholders (government officials, tourism and hospitality organizations)
• Airport Management Consultants
• Airline Staff

Course Content

• Quantify Market Size & Route Opportunities
• Comparisons with Competing Airports
• Identification of Target Airlines
• Business and Tourism Community Consultations
• Surveys of Passengers, Residents, Businesses, Organizations and Government Offices
• Airline Incentives & Revenue Guarantees
• Airline Ticket and Air Fare Analysis
• Passenger and Aircraft Movement Forecasting
• Examination of New or Enhanced Air Service Opportunities
• Developing the Air Service Strategy
• Developing an ASD Action Plan
• Air Service Presentation Preparation and Delivery to Airlines
• The Airlines Perspective Regarding the Role of Airports
• Marketing Strategies to Support New Air Services
• Measuring ASD Success