Scottish Highland

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of airline franchising on levels of air service provision in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Results showed that while air carriers operating under franchise agreements were offering reduced levels of capacity, they were able, assisted by a more suitable mix of aircraft, to deliver significant service improvements. These improvements were manifested in the scheduling of more convenient flight times, a higher proportion of direct services and the introduction of new routes. Compared to the previous incumbent, franchised operators were also better able at managing capacity in relation to demand with increased load factors reported after 1993. The implications of these results is that little evidence could be identified of any substantial deterioration in service levels as a consequence of franchising.

Key Words

Air services, Highlands and Islands, franchising, service frequency, maximum lapsed destination time, average seating capacity per flight, average in-flight time, capacity, traffic, load factor.

Introduction

The economic and social development of peripheral regions is highly dependant on the provision of adequate and easily affordable transportation services. In some regions of world, because of geographic location, climate and physical terrain, air transport is the only viable means of transportation for both goods and people.

Peripheral regions have two key features: low population densities and a lack of proximity to major economic and political centres. Motivated primarily by the political necessity to maintain cohesion within national jurisdictions, special arrangements are usually made with regard to the provision of air services to and within these regions. The high costs associated with providing these services coupled with the need to maintain and operate airport infrastructure to serve small communities, means that subsidy, in the form of grants from both national, regional and local levels of government, is normally required to sustain a satisfactory level of air service provision.

Methods of paying subsidy and the sources of funding vary by country. For example, in the United States, there exists a comprehensive system of subsidies organised within an Essential Air Services Programme. This was established in response to concerns regarding the future viability of air services to small communities as a result of deregulation within the domestic airline market. Research undertaken during the late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties appears to validate these concerns.

Policy-makers in the European Commission, in formulating legislation to liberalise air services, implicitly recognised the possible risks to the future viability of air services to peripheral communities with provisions for the imposition of Public Service Obligations (Commission of the European Communities, 1992). These provisions grant national governments of member states the authority to protect and subsidise routes that are of vital socio-economic importance. Levels of subsidy and decisions on which routes qualify for PSO-status are left to the discretion of each member state. According to Reynolds-Feighan (1995), it is because of this that significant regional distortions exist in the quality and availability of air services to and within Europe's remote regions. For example, in France, approximately eighty domestic routes have public service obligations imposed on them. In Scotland, on the other hand, public service obligations are imposed on a limited number of ultra-peripheral routes.

Public service obligations, supported by subsidy, can guarantee for a fixed period of time, continuity of air services and low fares on routes linking peripheral regions with hub airports. In the absence of public service obligations, these markets are subject to shifting airline strategic priorities in response to developments in global markets. Such a shift in priorities can be manifested in increased management focus on providing services on high-density profitable networks while simultaneously rationalising service levels and delivery on costly and generally lower margin regional air service networks. Rationalisation can be achieved through franchising, where major airlines sub-contract unprofitable segments of their networks to dedicated regional carriers. However, franchising also allows an airline to retain the presence of its brand in a franchised market. (Denton and Denis, 2000). Air services that are of vital socio-economic importance to communities located in peripheral regions, without regulatory protection, are therefore vulnerable to changes in levels of provision as a consequence of these developments.

Between 1994 and 1996, as a result of sustained losses incurred from directly operating air services in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, British Airways decided to franchise its operations to two UK-based regional carriers. It is within this context that the aim of this paper is to identify and evaluate whether there have been any significant changes to the level of air service provision in the Highlands and Islands as a consequence of air service franchising.

The structure of this paper is laid out as follows. The following section provides a summary of the socio-economic characteristics of the Highlands and Islands region, a brief history of air service provision and the current regulatory framework within which these services are operated. The second section will examine past literature on the subject of air service provision to peripheral regions and franchising, with particular focus on the experience of small communities in the United States following domestic air services deregulation in 1978. In the third section, the methodology, research approach and sources of data will be specified. The following section will evaluate the results, explaining any noticeable trends and developments. The final section presents the conclusions of this paper.

Air Transport in the Highlands and Islands

Socio-economic environment

The Scottish Highlands and Islands accounts for 13% of the land area of the British Isles. A sizeable proportion of this area consists of islands and mainland communities located at a significant distance from key political and economic decision-making centres in both the United Kingdom and wider European Union. The population of the Highlands and Islands, according to the latest statistics is 373,000, with 61% living in settlements of less than 5,000 inhabitants (Highlands and Islands Enterprise, 2002). Table 3 provides population statistics for a number of Scottish islands between 1981 and 2000.