ساختن و یا شکستن – عوامل کلیدی موفقیت در بازار حمل و نقل هوایی  Making or breaking – Key success factors in the air cargo market

1. Introduction Air freight and associated logistics operations are like a realtime laboratory of transport economics in action, an environment where technological and business model developments unfold not only constantly but also with increasing speed. This involves a wide range of industrial and economic tools, including frequent market entries, as well as exits through mergers, takeovers and bankruptcies. At the same time, airports and carriers are increasingly confronted with ecological and capacity restrictions, such as bans on night flights at certain airports. What is more, commercial viability of air cargo airlines is suffering albeit a substantial fall in yields, ever increasing pressure from freight forwarders and integrators and competitive pressure from ocean shipping and road haulage. Yet, despite such developments, airports and regions continue to lock horns in competition for airlines, freight flows and associated handling activities. This is because of the substantial economic impact that air cargo brings and also because while air cargo airlines have usually poor profit margins some other parts of the air cargo supply chain are indeed highly profitably or an important contribution to revenues (e.g. in combination carriers). Air freight and the logistics it involves therefore constitute a highly dynamic sector that is drawing growing attention from politicians and policymakers, as well as academics. Some major developments at both the supply and the demand side of the market have meant that the economic significance of air freight has grown considerably in recent decades, as is reflected in changed attitudes on the part of suppliers (Zhang and Zhang, 2002). Whereas air freight used to be considered as secondary to passenger transport (and hence treated as a by-product that would have to cover an over proportionally high proportion of the shared cost such as fuel cost and could at best achieve break even only), a number of airlines are now dedicated entirely to providing full freighter services. At the same time some passenger airlines with dedicated cargo operations recently divested from their full freighter fleet due to the strong fluctuations in the air cargo market and the ample belly capacity of new long haul passenger aircraft (e.g. Merkert and Ploix, 2014). In those cases intermediaries with a full freighter fleet are now hired to provide supplemental cargo capacity if necessary. capacity if necessary. This introductory paper considers a number of major evolutions in the air freight market. In the first instance, it describes the heterogeneous environment in which air cargo services are performed. Subsequently, it looks at some of the most notable developments in air freight. Lastly, it deals with the market structure and with possible future strategies.