بررسی رفتار انتخاب فرودگاه مسافران با استفاده از مدل انتخاب ترکیبی: مطالعه موردی از سئول منطقه شهری، کره  جنوبی   A study on passengers’ airport choice behavior using hybrid choice model: A case study of Seoul  metropolitan area, South Korea

1. Introduction Since 2005, the emergence of Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) in South Korea’s aviation industry have brought about a shift in its structure that had previously been dominated by two major airlines. On international routes, LCCs operated 68 flight movements along with 11,360 passengers per annum in 2008and 23,871 flight movements with 652 million passengers in 2014. The market share of LCCs in South Korea’s international flights shows continuous growth as it increased from .03% in 2008 to 11.41% in 2014. The lower air fare by LCCs has contributed to significant traffic leakage from full service carriers (FSC). This is because travelers are willing to spend several hours on access to airports in order to take advantage of lower fares and more convenient airport services (Fuellhart, 2007). The growth of LCCs in multi-airport regions give air passengers more diverse flight alternatives by combining multiple departure airports and flight routes (Yang et al., 2014). Travelers have the option to use different airports to take advantage of lower fares and more convenient airline services rather than using their local airports (Suzuki and Audino, 2003). Each of South Korea’s airports are trying to boost its performance by expanding existing infrastructure to increase potential demand for air travel and by improving the quality of service. With LCCs focusing on increasing international routes, competition among airports in the Seoul metropolitan area will increase significantly. Passengers will have more alternative airports when traveling. For local authorities, airport planners and airlines, it is important to know how passengers decide on their preferred method of travel in such market competition condition (Pels et al., 2003). It is significantly important to improve explanatory power that combines explanatory variables and latent psychological factors that affect attitudes and perceptions in the decision process.