توانمندسازها و محدودیت های حمل و نقل هوایی جانبی – مطالعه موردی استونی  Enablers and constraints of peripheral air cargo e A case study of Estonia

1. Introduction Air cargo is a dynamic sector combining changes in macro environment, business solutions and customer requirements. This text comments upon air cargo enablers and constraints in Estonia, a rather peripheral country in the European Union. In the Baltic Sea area, the role of Estonian air cargo is mostly to serve spoke connections to nearby cargo hubs in Scandinavia and mainland Europe. The guiding idea is to analyze the viewpoints of local service providers and stakeholders and, having generally charted the future scenarios, to focus more specifically on two research branches: 1) Geographic/locational enablers and constraints e how is air cargo service sector development in Estonia affected and enabled by the location factor of clients and service providers from site-level to macro-level issues; and 2) Perceived innovativeness in the sector e on what kind of innovation is present and are innovative initiatives by service providers even needed in a relative periphery with modest hinterland for exports and limited market size for imports. In this construct, elements of location factor are describing the quality of local operating environment. Innovation elements combine the perceived market outlook of the stakeholders with existing capabilities as change is the synthesized result of a variety of factors, of which perhaps the most important are inner motivation, competences, external forces and perceived opportunities. Understanding local strengths and development constraints offers input for better informed management decisions. A typical case in various regional airports in Europe with similar size (and smaller) appears to be having substantial over-capacity and operating capabilities. This paper analyses Tallinn airport and surrounding air cargo service area from similar view. The foundational research goal is to identify, if the situation in the sector could be further improved from the inside to induce demand by increased service attractiveness or has such supply-based growth approach already exhausted its potential. To contribute to such general goal, this study more specifically combines two research branches by applying established constructs from location and innovation analysis.