The ‘situation characteristics’ are characterizing aspects related to the surrounding area of airports. The following characteristics will be discussed in this section (click on a link to jump to the related subject):
When analyzing airport locations in a low-cost carrier network it is important to look at the availability of a potential market. The following aspects are possible indicators will be analysed related to airport locations: population density, number of tourists, and the gross domestic product (GDP). Data will be used from Eurostat of 2002 and 2003, of these years most data is available at the moment of research. Data will be analysed at nuts-1 level, no data was available for this research at the other spatial levels. With overlay9 analysis in GIS programs the relation between these aspects and the location of low-cost carrier airports can be analysed. These characteristics will be analysed for each airport.
In this case the location will be analysed related to the rest of Europe. Is it located in the middle of Europe, or on a separated island? Airport related data will be analysed on a different spatial level. Data will be aggregated on national level and the low-cost carrier growth of the last few years will be visualized. This way more understanding can be obtained of the presence and growth of low-cost carriers at country level.
Landside accessibility relates to the degree of connectivity of an airport with other landside infrastructure, like a train or highway network. This can be analysed with help of a GIS. If more rail- and highways are connected to an airport, this airport will have a high landside accessibility. Because it was not possible to obtain geographical data of rail- and highway networks at European level this analyses could not be carried out.
The amount of competition of an airport related strongly to the geographical location. This research restricts itself to competition between low-cost carrier airports. With help of GIS programs the number of airports within 200 kilometres of an airport will be visualized. A large number indicates a high potential of competition between airports. This analyses will be carrier out with a ‘buffer analysis’ or ‘proximity count’10 in a GIS.