Evaluation of the Market Potential and Technical Requirements for Thin-Haul Air Transport

The future mobility landscape faces several challenges including increasing congestion, meeting emission reduction goals, and reducing overall travel time from door to door. The current transport market, including the aviation sector, needs different concepts that provide feasible solutions. This paper therefore considers the re-introduction of small regional aircraft with up to 19 passengers, and the potential benefits these may yield for both travellers and companies offering these services. The market for these particular aircraft types, including the Dornier Do228 or Beechcraft 1900, was at its peak in the 1990s, and respective services focused on very thin-haul routes for both passengers and freight as well as military applications. The paper discusses developments that potentially contributed to the decline of these particular aircraft. These may include the entry of low cost carriers on many routes, making it more affordable for a high share of travellers to use air transport, and thus turning thin-haul demand routes into ones with potentially high seating capacities. Furthermore, alternative transport modes such as high-speed rail may have imposed increasing competition on regional flights, offering faster and less expensive travel options for passengers. Today, however, the specific characteristics of 19-seater aircraft fit well into the required rethinking of the current transport system – short take-off and landing capabilities, or the use of airports with minimum infrastructure requirements. The paper evaluates and outlines the required technical features of these particular aircraft required for a successful future market dissemination. Taking these characteristics into consideration, the research in this paper discusses future fields of applications and respective business models. These include the introduction of on-demand services for both passengers and freight, focusing on commuter services, for example, in order to realize significant reductions by offering direct point-to-point connections. Additional benefits resulting from the (re-)introduction of these specific aircraft services are also generated for remote rural regions, making it more attractive locations for companies by ensuring high connectivity to urban agglomerations, and alleviating some of the capacity shortages at larger airports by offering more point-to-point connections on thin-haul routes