Journal of Transport Geography 19 (2011) 755762

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Journal of Transport Geography

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An analysis of the determinants of air trafc volume for European metropolitan areas
Frdric Dobruszkes , Moritz Lennert 1, Gilles Van Hamme 1
Universit libre de Bruxelles (ULB-IGEAT), Boulevard du Triomphe, CP 246, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

a r t i c l e
Keywords: Europe European cities Air transport Air service Liberalisation

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
This paper examines the determinants of air trafc volume in the major European urban regions, highlighting those that depend on the metropolitan features of cities. We used homogeneous urban and airline data that make international comparisons possible. We found that GDP, the level of economic decision-power, tourism functions, and the distance from a major air market account for more than two-thirds of the variation in air service. This seems to indicate that air service remains profoundly rooted in the metropolitan features of urban regions (notably size and decision-power), even if low-cost airlines are probably less linked to the latter because they partly focus on niche markets and regional airports. Much of the remainder is probably attributable to the specicities of the urban economy, to actors strategies and to competition from high-speed trains. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The heterogeneity of air services to cities can be understood as the visible manifestation of two complementary dynamics. On the one hand, there are the general factors of urban attractiveness, such as size and activities. The focus here is thus on the impact of the metropolitan features of urban regions. On the other hand, there are a series of dynamics resulting from strategies pursued by airlines and governments. The former adjust their offer in order to be protable, basing themselves sometimes on the features and assets of the cities served, and sometimes on alternate strategies. The latter seek to obtain the best air service possible for their city or region, either by relying on favourable metropolitan features or, on the contrary, by trying to counterbalance a lack of sufcient qualities that might spontaneously attract air service. Several studies analyse the linkage between air trafc and various urban or regional characteristics. In this context, however, the question of direction of causalities is inevitably raised (Goetz, 1992; Debbage and Delk, 2001). Most authors have chosen to analyse the impact of air transport on urbanisation or on certain sectors of activity (see, for instance, Alkaabi and Debbage, 2007; Brueckner, 2003; Button et al., 1999). Research intended to demonstrate the opposite causal relationship is less common. Certainly we cannot deny that air transport can have a multiplier effect on the territory served. However, conversely, it is evident that air service will not be provided just anywhere. An airline that
Corresponding author. Tel.: +32 2 650 50 72; fax: +32 2 650 50 92.
E-mail addresses: frederic.dobruszkes@ulb.ac.be (F. Dobruszkes), moritz.lennert @ulb.ac.be (M. Lennert), gvhamme@ulb.ac.be (G. Van Hamme). 1 Tel.: +32 2 650 50 72; fax: +32 2 650 50 92. 0966-6923/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2010.09.003

operates in a market economy and is obliged to generate prot cannot plan its network haphazardly. On the contrary, it must serve globally protable markets or be able to generate, stimulate or divert trafc from main airports as some low-cost airlines do using secondary, regional airports through lower fares (Barrett, 2004a). From this perspective, various researchers have published studies aimed at identifying the factors affecting the geographical distribution of air trafc. Table 1 presents a summary of these. The comparison it provides shows that nearly all the studies focus on the United States. The main reason lies in the difculty of nding homogeneous data in a multinational context. Moreover, the US seems to be easier to study because most of the airports serve a distinct city with limited ground transport options. By contrast, several European airports are close to various cities while high-speed trains may increase the catchments area of others. In contrast, there is little research on Europe, and the little that does exist is dated and limited to Western Europe. The more recent dynamics of airlines networks are thus not taken into account despite major changes in Europe. Yet these dynamics were dramatic. First, air transport has been fully liberalised from 1987 to 1997 for the European airlines through a space including EU-27, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland (OReilly and Stone Sweet, 1998). This change in the regulatory framework has led in particular to the concentration of the so-called network airlines on their hubs (partially without relation with the surrounding urban area (Derudder et al., 2007)) and to the boom of the low-cost airlines, based on niche strategies, competition with NorthSouth charter ights and the use of secondary, regional airports (Dobruszkes, 2006). Moreover, they seem to play a main role in the new airline routes linking West and East Central Europe

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Table 1 Select list of research papers on the factors affecting the localisation of air service. Non-signicant factors have been removed. In italics: the most important factors. Authors Space and airline data Factors Urban size Barnard and Oyen (1971) US Midwest Sixty non-hub airports Air passengers in 1966 Goetz (1992) USA Top 50 air markets Air passengers by metropolitan area in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1987 EU12 Cities > 200 000 inhabitants International air service in 1988 Discazeaux and Polse (2007) USA + Canada Cities P 500 000 inhabitants Air passengers in 2000 Inhabitants Employments Graduate population Employment in tourism-related services (%) Employment in high order services (%) Canada effect Hub Regional centrality Proximity to hub Liu et al. (2006) USA Metropolitan areas P350,000 inhabitants and with min. 0.75% of US enplaned passengers Air passengers in 2000 Inhabitants Employment in professional, scientic and technical (%) Employment in tourism (%) Days of sun Distance to the nearest major air passenger market Inhabitants Employments Inhabitants University enrolment Urban characteristics Per capita income Others Number of departures at the nearest hub Travel time/distance to the nearest hub

Cattan (1995)

Inhabitants

Tertiary activity in the national urban system (%) Tertiary activity in the European network of cities (%)

Trafc concentration index

(Dobruszkes, 2009). In addition, the liberalisation, because of the ban on state aids, has also imposed the obligation to be protable. Because of this, airlines had to adapt their network, ending some services, opening others or, sometimes, going into bankruptcy. Second, during the last two decades, Europe was the scene of major restructuring including the advent of the Single Market and the enlargements towards the North and the East, accompanied by delocalisation of enterprises. This has increased the ows of people and integrated more and more places into these ows. Third, travelling by airplane has become commonplace and this democratisation has led to the extinction of several international rail services. The purpose of this paper is to help to ll this void by analysing the factors contributing to a concentration of air services in Europe. As can be seen in Table 1, authors generally concur in their focus on factors that fall into three broad categories: the size of the urban agglomeration; the structure of its population and/or of its economy; other variables including those relating to geographical location. These three categories constitute the approach we will follow here. The rest of this article is structured as follows. Section 2 details our hypotheses and provides an overview of the data and methods used. Section 3 introduces two models based on the metropolitan features of urban regions, one for total and another for only international trafc. Section 4 is a discussion based on the different reasons for deviations from the model. Section 5 presents the conclusions.

into account larger, functional urban areas, some airports obviously serve much wider territories. Unfortunately, many different parameters can inuence the size and shape of catchment areas. Reviewing the recent literature, Lian and Rnnevik (2010) and Pantazis and Liefner (2006) show that the attractiveness of airports depends on their ground side accessibility, on the available offer (direct vs. indirect destinations and thus travel time, frequencies, prices, time schedules, etc.) and on the passengers (purpose of travel and thus sensitivity to price and time). All these factors inuence the choice of one airport over another, leading to multiple and potentially contradictory impacts.2 The difculty is even increased when taking into account potential overlaps of catchment areas and the difculty to assign population or economic wealth to one or the other. Empirical evidence on actual catchment areas is only available through enquiries that do not exist on comprehensive, Europewide basis. For these reasons we have decided to work on the basis of functional urban areas, knowing that they are an imperfect proxy of the actual catchment areas. This will be an important point to highlight in the discussion of the results of our analysis. Practically, we will thus use the functional urban areas (FUAs) dened by the European spatial planning observation network (ESPON) research programme, covering the liberalised European air space, i.e. the EU-27, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway. These FUAs include the morphological area as well as its commuter basin (see IGEAT et al., 2007). From the ESPON FUAs, we selected the 132 largest ones on the basis of a signicant discontinuity in the cumulative frequency curve of the number of inhabitants, yielding

2. Linking urban areas to patterns in air service: hypotheses, data and methods When studying air trafc at the scale of cities, the question of the delineation of these cities, and notably of the catchment area of the airports linked to these cities, is a difcult issue that has been mostly ignored by the existing literature. Even when taking

2 For example, local and regional airports can lose in attractiveness when traditional carriers shift their offer to hubs or other larger airports (Lian and Rnnevik, 2010). At the same time, regional airports can attract far-away customers through low-cost airfares (Barrett, 2004b). In addition, the complex interaction between high-speed rail and air travel may also lead to contradictory effects sometimes replacing the air mode, while in other situations increasing the catchment area of specic airports (Givoni and Banister, 2006).

F. Dobruszkes et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 19 (2011) 755762 Table 2 The independent variables. Theme Population Gross domestic product National administrative function International administrative function Economic decision-power Data Inhabitants Euros (millions) Hierarchical administrative level (scored) Hierarchical administrative level (scored) Total Of which the number of headquarters of the top-2000 biggest world companies (scored) Of which global network service connectivities (scored) Of which the number of headquarters of the main (3000) European national companies selected in each country so that they weigh together 50% of the national added value (scored) Of which: number of sub-headquarters of the top-200 bigger world companies (scored) Total Of which top-500 European universities (scored) Of which top-100 Research Centres (scored) Of which employment in high-technological and knowledge-intensive sectors in the services (scored) Of which employment in high-technological and knowledge-intensive sectors in manufacturing (scored) Total Of which the number of beds or number of nights (scored) Of which tourist appreciation (scored) Km Year 2004 2004 2006 2006 20002005 2005 2000 2005 Range 427,40014,270,100 3,477.554,5161.9 08 03 010 03 03 02 Espon 1.4.3 Espon 1.4.3 Forbes GAWC Data Set 12 Bureau Van Dijk Source Municipal data from Espon database

757

2000 2005 2005 2005 2005 2005 2003 2003 2003 2008

02 09.38 05 02.5 01.875 00.625 010 05 03 311,340

Forbes

Knowledge and scientic research

Webometrics Webometrics Eurostat Eurostat

Tourism

ULB-IGEAT Michelin Own calculations

Distance to the nearest main air market

a sample that ranges from 468,000 inhabitants (Ljubljana) to 13.7 million (London). All airports located within a single FUA were aggregated to a single value.3 Each airport was linked to only one FUA, with the exception of the RheinRhur area where several FUAs were aggregated. Among the 131 FUAs, 18 lack an airport or have an airport without regular air service (see Appendix A) and were excluded from the analysis in order to avoid any selection bias (Heckman, 1979). Information about air service is available from databases produced by OAG (January 2008 edition), providing disaggregated and exhaustive data on scheduled airline service on a global scale. Two indicators were calculated:  The total number of seats on offer.  The number of international seats on offer, including on intra-European international ights. The rst indicator simply gives an idea of the volume on offer, without distinguishing between destinations. In the case of second-tier and third-tier cities, international connections are often provided via a major city within the same country. In other words, national air trafc ows cannot be reduced to purely national movements. Secondly, the analysis of international seats alone makes it possible to narrow ones focus to the international accessibility of urban regions. The size of FUAs has been measured in terms of population size and GDP (gross domestic product). As the latter is not available at FUA scale, NUTS 34 approximations of the FUAs have been used for
3 In some exceptional cases, airports outside the FUA boundaries were added if they were the main airport of the respective city (example: Malpensa for Milan). 4 Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics. This is a geocode standard that references the subdivisions of the European countries for statistical purposes. The NUTS system is regulated and managed by the EU. The NUTS 3 level corresponds for example to the provinces in Spain, the districts (Landkreise) in Germany or the departments (dpartements) in France. More information is available at <http:// epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/nuts_nomenclature/introduction>.

both. Both of these indicators represent a measure of the potential demand available in a given city. In addition, several variables have been identied as potential indicators of activities likely to generate or attract air trafc ows. These classications are dened in IGEAT et al. (2007) in a homogeneous fashion. They consist of (see Table 2 for details):  National administrative function: one could assume that the higher the position in the administrative hierarchy, the more likely the need to travel either to other cities of the countries or to other cities in Europe. Especially in larger countries, even the former would lead to an increase in air trafc. The value of this variable is a score based on the hierarchical level (national capital, capital of an autonomous region, etc.) and national population size.  International administrative function: the logic here is similar to the previous variable, except that fewer cities are concerned, but these cities are more distant from each other. The value of this variable is a score based on the hierarchical level in terms of European institutions (principal seats, secondary seats, agencies) and the presence of other international institutions (UN, NATO, etc.).  Economic decision-power: in the logic of the global cities literature (Friedmann, 1986; Sassen, 2006; Beaverstock et al., 1999), the insertion of cities into the globalised economy is determined by the presence of high-level decision making and service provision that allow the participation of the citys economy in global networks of production. In spite of new technologies of communication, these networks imply frequent face-to-face contacts and thus air travel. The score of this variable is based on the number of headquarters of the 2000 largest global rms, number of regional sub-headquarters of the 200 largest global companies (both based on data from the Forbes website, 2005), the GaWC measurement of inter-city connectivity based on the location of advanced tertiary service enterprises (Taylor, 2001), the number of headquarters of the

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F. Dobruszkes et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 19 (2011) 755762 Table 3 Multiple regressions results. Variables Total air servicesa R2 = 0.70 Standardized Coefcients GDPa Economic decisionpower Tourism Distance to the nearest main air marketa
a

main European companies selected in each country so that together they account for half of the national added value (based on Bureau Van Dijk data).  Knowledge and scientic research: just as for todays rm networks, contemporary research is also a globalised activity, with frequent exchanges between centres and people. The score for this variable is calculated according to a ranking of the 500 top European universities and the 100 top research centres (based on Webometrics.info), and the percentage of employment in high-technology and knowledge-intensive sectors in tertiary services on the one hand, and in manufacturing on the other.  Tourism: the attractiveness of a city for international tourists obviously impacts on the total air trafc linking this city to the rest of the world. The score of this variable is based on the number of beds and the number of stars in the Michelin guide.5 The impact of these functions on air trafc is potentially a direct one. But these variables may also indirectly indicate air trafc needs. On the one hand, they attest more generally to the power and attractiveness of a city, elements that may also contribute to the concentration of air service. On the other hand, these factors (with the exception of tourism) reect the presence of skilled populations with high economic, social and cultural capital. Such people are more likely to travel by air, including for personal reasons (Gssling et al., 2009). Finally, following Liu et al. (2006), a variable indicating the distance to the nearest main air market has been calculated, in order to take into account possible market saturation. The main air markets considered are the 25 principal cities in terms of the volume of air service; together these represent 62% of the seats on offer. In the case of the 25 cities that are themselves main air markets, it is the minimum distance to another large air market that was taken into consideration. This same variable may also act as a proxy for relative isolation of a given city, thus potentially making conclusions a bit fuzzier. Indicators relating to the morphology of airline networks, such as the hub function, were deliberately excluded, since these are in part a consequence of urban characteristics. Thus, Discazeaux and Polse (2007, p. 17) show that the hub function is strongly correlated to the size of cities. As in most of the existing literature, a classical, linear multiple regression model was drawn up using the stepwise method in order to determine the signicant variables that are useful to include in the model.6 Results of this analysis are discussed in the following section.

International air servicesa R2 = 0.69 Standardized Coefcients 0.236 0.490 Signicance 0.002 0.000

Signicance 0.000 0.000

0.395 0.296

0.230 0.277

0.001 0.000

0.213 0.162

0.003 0.008

LN transformation.

3. Results of the multiple regression models When using total air service as the dependant variable, four variables out of the independent variables specied above contribute signicantly to predicting air service in the European urban system under study. These are: GDP, economic decisionpower, tourism, and distance from the main air market (Table 3), with GDP being the most determinant. These four variables account for 70% of the variation in air service. If we eliminated the distance factor that can be considered as not being a metropolitan

5 This score has been revised upwards (+5) for FUAs that are not strictly speaking tourist destinations but whose airport is undoubtedly the gateway to an important tourist region (for instance, Catania, Malaga, Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Murcia and Nice). 6 A model using all variables was also tested and the results were very similar to those of the stepwise method.

feature, the model describes 64% of the variation in air service. In other words, we can formulate a hypothesis that the metropolitan features of size, economic decision-power and tourist attractiveness of European cities account for at least 64% of the variation in concentration of air service. By comparison, the regression model that describes the variation in international supply of air service yields the same four variables as above, but here, economic decision-power is more important than GDP. This conrms the growing importance of international relations in managing economic affairs, all the more so if we take into consideration the major European or global companies, as is the case with this indicator. The model accounts for 69% of the variation in international supply. If we remove the geographical variable, we nd that the metropolitan features of European cities account for at least 66% of the variation in concentration of the air service. The other variables chosen are less useful in accounting for the air service to our sample of cities, even if they potentially contribute to a favourable environment for air services. This can be explained to a large extent by the correlation between these variables and the selected ones (see Table 4), but also by the limited weight of some of these functions compared to the total activity in the respective cities. According to the model, the characteristics of cities thus explain to a large extent the spatial variation in European air service. This type of analysis naturally raises, however, the question of deviations from the predictions. Figs. 1 and 2 show the ratio between the observed and the expected (as of the model) number of seats. Dark circles thus show cities with a higher offer than expected (oversupply), light circles with thick outline those with lower offer than expected (undersupply). On both maps, the European banana or the central European polygon, the traditional centre of activity and population in Europe, includes numerous oversupplies in relation to the model. We also see, however, excess supply outside the European centre, namely in northern Europe and in the Mediterranean basin, but for some FUAs this is only true for total trafc, but not for international trafc (Southern Italy, Oslo, Seville, Bilbao, Glasgow, Cologne-Bonn, etc.).7 Others, show the opposite behaviour, i.e. oversupply on international level, but not for the total trafc (Brussels, Vienna, Bucharest, Poznan, Gothenburg, etc.), which for some of these cities is probably mostly due to the lack of national trafc, notably in small countries. Finally, with regard to the centre of Europe, London does not have a larger than expected supply in terms of total trafc (but it does for international trafc), whereas

7 Among our sample of cities, the national supply represents 28% of the total air service (according to seats).

F. Dobruszkes et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 19 (2011) 755762 Table 4 Simple correlations. (a) Population GDPa National administrative functions International administrative functions Economic decision-power Knowledge and scientic research Tourism Distance to the nearest main air marketa
a a

759

(b) 0.74

(c) 0.32 0.31 0.35 0.73 0.42 0.51 0.35

(d) 0.30 0.35 0.38 0.19 0.29

(e) 0.51 0.60 0.73 0.38 0.65 0.49

(f) 0.45 0.66 0.42 0.19 0.65 0.44

(g) 0.41 0.45 0.51 0.29 0.49 0.44 0.34

(h)

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h)

0.74 0.32 0.51 0.45 0.41

0.31 0.30 0.60 0.66 0.45

0.35

0.34

LN transformation. Non-signicant correlations not shown (a = 0.05).

Fig. 1. Observed vs. expected total air services.

Paris is clearly marked by an undersupply in relation to the model, although the French capital ranks second in terms of air service in Europe. 4. Discussion The picture that emerges seems to suggest a certain link between supply and general population density in the larger areas surrounding the airports. This could contribute to the explanation of the undersupply of cities such as Berlin, Madrid, Helsinki, etc., all surrounded by fairly low-density regions. On the other hand, some airports in higher-density areas might serve several FUAs at once thus making the estimation of the catchment area more

difcult (Randstad Holland, Flemish triangle, but also bi-polar combinations of FUAs such as CopenhagenMalm), and is not attempted here. The difference between the two major European cities, London and Paris, raises a question. Although of equal population size, the volume of supply is signicantly higher for the former. Partially, this can be attributed to the fact that London is a more international city and better positioned within a globalised nancial capitalism.8 Paris, on the other hand, draws part of its economic status from the French national champions, operating
8 For an in-depth comparison of the nancial position of London and Paris, see Cassis and Bussire (2005).

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Fig. 2. Observed vs. expected international air services.

largely on a European scale, with a more industrial prole than London (IGEAT et al., 2006). Evidence of this difference may also be found in the diversity of conclusions by researchers as to whether to classify Paris as a world city on the same level as New York, Tokyo and London (see Beaverstock et al., 1999, p. 447). In addition, in contrast with London, Paris is surrounded by a low-density region. Moreover, London is situated on an island while Paris is a continental city that is well served by both national and European motorways or railways. Finally, 56% of French holiday trips are intra-France, compared to 23% of UK holidays, thus also contributing to the differences in air trafc (European Commission, 2009). Next to the special case of Paris and London, however, several factors can explain the divergence between the model and reality. First, the models cannot account for the totality of urban characteristics that inuence the development of air service. We must take into consideration the functions rejected by the model but which, while insufciently signicant overall, nonetheless inuence the level of air service to some FUAs. Thus, for instance, it is evident that international administrative functions directly and indirectly contribute to mobility among expatriate employees and their families and friends to/from cities like Brussels, Geneva or Vienna. Furthermore, it should be noted that certain cities full specic economic functions that are not reected by the variables used but that nevertheless contribute to generating an air service that is superior to what might have been expected. This is the case, for instance, in Toulouse, where the aeronautical and space industries give rise to a certain degree of national and international

mobility among executives and researchers and, more generally, a certain level of urban inuence (Zuliani and Jalabert, 2005). Secondly, we must take into account the strategies pursued by airlines that might lead to an oversupply in terms of local needs. Two strategies should be highlighted. On the one hand, the traditional airlines often set up hub-and-spokes networks that tend to concentrate the supply geographically and temporally on a small number of airports (Burghouwt and de Wit, 2005). The choice of an airport as a hub by a particular airline owes nothing to chance. It is primarily, a question of being in a favourable location in relation to both local needs and global trafc ows. It is important to avoid the need for passengers to make excessive detours, or the increase in travel time will make it difcult to attract them. This means that cities situated at the heart of Europe will by denition be favoured (e.g. the hubs of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, etc.) and will be characterised by oversupply because of connecting passengers, at the expense of more peripheral cities (for example, the Nordic cities), unless the latter serve as a hub thanks to their specic location (such as Copenhagen, which serves as a hub for Northern Europe). However, these strategies are themselves largely connected to the features of particular urban regions, for it would be illusory to try to offer a protable air service to every location. As Knowles (2006) recalls, revolutions in transport are not egalitarian and do not lead to the homogenisation of accessibility. Hub strategies can lead to smaller cities showing higher seat numbers than larger cities, as is the case, for example, for Amsterdam and Frankfurt in comparison to the

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Northern Rhine conurbation serviced by Dsseldorf airport. On the other hand, the spectacular development of the European low-cost sector has led to a few major shifts in service to airports. Although the low-cost supply is primarily focused on the major inter-urban lines, certain airlines prefer using regional airports that serve in a sense as a second urban airport (for example, Gerona for Barcelona, Hahn for Frankfort, etc.) or as niche markets (Dobruszkes, 2006). Centred on these airports, therefore, is a supply that is partly disconnected from the region served, but that draws a clientele coming from farther away in order to take advantage of low fares (for example, Brussels South Charleroi). The launch of low-cost air services has also expanded the catchment areas of established airports, as Pantazis and Liefner (2006) demonstrated through the case of Hanover airport where more and more passengers come from more distant origins and especially large agglomerations. Moreover, the low-cost supply can in turn give rise to new tourist and short- and medium-term migration destinations based on low airfares (for example, to Dublin, Krakow, etc.). More generally, thus, the alternative economic model of low-cost airlines enables them to serve regions that at times seem unlikely destinations. This explains in part the oversupply of various second-tier cities and/or post-industrial regions. Thirdly, one must keep in mind strategies designed by national and local public authorities to favour the development of air service to their territory, in a context of competition between territories and of liberalisation of air service (Burghouwt, 2007; Dobruszkes, 2008). If we exclude the specic case of nancing public service obligations, their action remains important in two respects: airport development and strategies for attracting low-cost carriers. Governments play a crucial role in developing airports. On the one hand, they make possible airport development by providing legal authorisation and by nancing ground transport. On the other hand, they are still often the owners or shareholders of airports and increasingly adopt entrepreneurial policies in order to promote growth in trafc, in particular for small or medium-sized airports, even if they are not commercially viable. For those regions that cannot count on the traditional carriers, the low-cost airlines are seen as a near-miraculous godsend. Local governments are thus tempted to offer these carriers a variety of incentives. It seems that Ryanair makes this a pre-condition for any establishment (Marty, 2004). At Brussels South Charleroi, for instance, the city within our sample with the most signicant oversupply, the government authorities (the Walloon Region and the public airport) offered this carrier direct and indirect incentives estimated, for the 20012003 period, at 23 million euros (De Beys, 2004). Finally, we must consider the impact of high-speed trains (HSTs) on the volume of air service, particularly in France, Germany, Spain and, to a lesser extent, in Belgium, Italy and Great Britain. With cruising speeds of at least 250 km/h and high frequencies on the most protable routes (a train every hour or even every 1/2-hour), HSTs are able to compete with air service, at least if the latter is not of the low-cost variety (European Commission, 2006). The development of both national and international HSTs in part explains the undersupply of total air service in Paris. Situated at the heart of the French HST network, Paris is the convergence point for four high-speed train lines that provide efcient service to a large part of the country. At an international level, high-speed rail service is gradually developing. The success of the Thalys (ParisBrussels, with an extension to Amsterdam and Cologne) and of the Eurostar connecting London to Paris and Brussels may be mentioned here. The quantitative importance of these services (Table 5) helps explain the supply of international air service, which, in these three cities, is as much or little if at all higher than the expected volumes. Indeed, the introduction of HST has led to a nearly complete disappearance of air services

Table 5 Number of seats on high-speed trains and air services (January 2008). Sources: Eurostar, Thalys and OAG. City-pairs LondonParis ParisBrussels LondonBrussels HSTs 726,000 649,650 436,500 Airlines 265,130 8,432 136,872 HST/airlines 2.7 77.0 3.2

between Paris and Brussels and to a signicant decline between London and both Paris and Brussels. Yet air services have remained notably because of long-haul connections and probably for passengers who do not travel from/to city centres. 5. Conclusions Our research was aimed at bringing to light the factors that contribute to the concentration of air service in Europe, highlighting those that depend on the characteristics of urban regions. Our results show the degree to which air service remains profoundly rooted in the metropolitan features of urban regions. Their economic size, economic decision-power and tourist attractiveness account for at least 64% of the variation in total supply and 66% in international supply. The rest is probably due to strategies pursued by the airlines and governments concerning the airports they manage and/or for which they authorise development, specic geographies of low-cost airlines and traditional carriers hub strategies, the presence of high-speed trains and other local specicities that cannot be reected in a global model. Be that as it may, the importance of the metropolitan features of urban regions in explaining the localisation of European air service indicates that these air services are part of the process of accumulation over the long term, with self-reinforcing agglomeration economies. The correlation between the airlines strategy and the metropolitan features of urban regions served must be qualied, however, depending on whether we are looking at the major traditional airlines or the low-cost carriers. The former are more and more focused on the hubs they have established, essentially in the large agglomerations that dominate the European urban system (OConnor, 2003; Dennis, 2005). They rely, therefore, on signicant metropolitan features, while at the same time reinforcing them. The second thrive in part on niche markets through regional airports. Their alternative economic model enables them to serve regions that at times seem unlikely destinations. Liberalisation in Europe has spawned the low-cost airlines while modifying the strategy of the ag carriers, and the former appear less connected to urban regional structures. Our results present a rst, apparently robust, general model highlighting the main factors explaining the location of air services. Future research should go into further detail by applying the model to subspaces or sub-categories. Possible differentiations to study include traditional carriers vs. low-cost airlines, Western vs. East Central Europe and different levels of airport hierarchies. It might also be interesting to explore the determining factors for extraEuropean trafc only, linking the latter more specically to cities roles in globalised economic networks, and to explore the specic role of freight trafc. Finally, in order to better take into account the catchment areas of airports, it could be interesting to use a measure of accessibility to population or to GDP within a certain time range around the airport. Acknowledgments This research was funded by the Institute for the encouragement of Scientic Research and Innovation of Brussels (ISRIB) through its Prospective Research for Brussels Program.

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The authors would like to thank Didier Peeters for the help with data at FUA level and Catherine Dehon for the precious support with statistics. In addition, we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose many constructive remarks have helped us improve this paper, all remaining errors and misinterpretations obviously being our own. Appendix A. List of the FUAs A.1. FUAs with regular, passenger air service Amsterdam, Antwerp, Athens, Barcelona/Mataro, Bari, Basel, Belfast, Berlin, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Bordeaux, Bournemouth/Poole, Bratislava, Bremen, Bristol metropolitan area, Brno, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Bydgoszcz, Cardiff and South Wales valleys metropolitan area, Catania, Charleroi/La Louvire, Cologne-Bonn (Southern Rhine conurbation), Copenhagen, Dortmund (Rhur conurbation), Dresden, Dublin, Dsseldorf (Northern Rhine conurbation), Edinburgh, Eindhoven, Florence, Frankfurt am Main, Gdansk, Geneva, Genoa, Glasgow, Gothenburg, Graz, Grenoble, Hamburg, Hannover, Helsinki, Karlsruhe, Katowice, Kaunas, Krakow, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, LeedsBradford metropolitan area, Leipzig-Halle, Lige, Lille, LinzWelsSteyr, Lisbon, Liverpool/Birkenhead metropolitan area, Ljubljana, Lodz, London, Luxembourg, Lyons, Madrid, Malaga, Malm, Manchester, Mannheim, Marseilles, Milano/Busto Arsizio/Como/Bergamo, Munich, Munster, Murcia/Orihuela, Nantes, Naples, Nice, NottinghamDerby metropolitan area, Nuremberg-Furth, Oporto, Oslo, Ostrava, Palermo, Paris, Portsmouth/Southampton metropolitan area, Poznan, Prague, Rennes, Riga, Rome, Rotterdam, RouenElboeuf, Saarbrcken, Saragossa, Seville, Shefeld, Soa, Stockholm, Strasbourg, StuttgartReutlingenTbingen, Szczecin, Tallinn, Teesside metropolitan area, Thessalonica, Toulon, Toulouse, Turin/ Pinerolo, Tyneside metropolitan area, ValenciaSagunto, Venice, Verona, Vienna, Vilnius, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Zurich. A.2. FUAs with airport but without regular, passenger air service AachenDren, Augsburg, Bielefeld, Ghent, Kassel, The Hague, Utrecht. A.3. FUAs without airport BielskoBiala, Chemnitz-Zwickau, Darmstadt, DouaiLens, Freiburg im Breisgau, Hasselt-Genk, Leicester, Osnabrck, Padua, Rybnik, Wuppertal. References
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