Browsing by Author "Pyyhtiä, Markus"

This master s thesis is concerned with the airline network geography of the Baltic Sea Area. The developments in economical liberties in the area and new liberties in air transport give special interest in researching this matter. Also the requirements of airlines to consolidate their activities give a reason to predict the possible outcomes of the geography of airlines in the area. Airlines networks organize themselves according to economic principles, most often attempting to reconciliate their form with the needs of passengers. The passengers are the centermost actors with their utilities as the main determinants of when and where air services are provided. States have interests in controlling parts of airline transportation as connectivities at cities act as instruments of local economic development. Cities as transport nodes can be characterized by their transport linkages as being central and/or intermediate. This characterization is created by the actions of the passengers, the airlines and the states. This interplay is central to the airline networks being formed in the Baltic Sea Area. Two empirical measurements of international airline connetivity were made from the study cities of Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Riga and Stockholm. The measurements were made from the database of flights during week 49 in December 2009, which has been acquired for this thesis. This database consists of the data of available passenger seats per flight per destination. From the database a measure of connectivity based on network analysis was made from all the study cities. This connectivity reveals geographic directionality of airline links between the study cities. To compare the situation with the natural transport demand, a gravity model was formulated from the same database to explain the divergent geographic airline connections. Airline connections have specialized in intercontinental airline connections mainly due to strategic business selections made by the region s airlines. In intracontinental connections, much less geographic divergence is found and this is also explained well by the gravity model. Potential is seen for some of the study area s cities to specialize geographically towards Eastern Europe in the future.