Assessing the competitive position of European airlines at the network level

Abstract

Assessing an airline’s competitive position is not trivial, as airlines serve many different markets with varying degrees of competition. Hence, networks compete against each other, meaning that the “typical” competition assessment at the airport- or direct route-level may not be sufficient. Fed with origin-destination data from Sabre Market Intelligence, this paper presents a modelling approach to assess the individual competitive position (CP) of airlines in intra-European air transport at the whole network level. The results indicate that LCC like Ryanair or WIZZ Air have a quite comfortable competitive position, while Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and BA/IAG are more exposed to competition.