Airline Industry Operations and Competition

- Headed and Managed by Dr. Leong Choon Heng

The research here focuses on selected issues in the airline business and explore ways to solve problems found in these areas. Solutions are directed at improving the operations and competitiveness of selected carriers and service providers in the airline industry.

Current Research Topics

Competition between network carriers and low-cost airlines and strategic decision making between traditional airline and low-cost airline on network type, flight frequency and price

Principal Investigators: Dr. Leong Choon Heng, Dr. Ada S.F. Ng and Gan Siok Yin


This research looks at how network carriers should respond to competition from low-cost airlines. Several levels of competition are being investigated, such as price, route-based, schedule-based and service-level competition. The complexity of airline competition suggests that there is no generalized way for airlines to gain market share. Multiple competitive tactics have to be deployed.

In competition, an airline has to decide its network type, flight frequency and price in accordance with the decisions of its competitors. In this research, we assume a model in which one traditional airline and one low-cost airline compete for the market between a city pair. We will form a decision tree to show the best decision under different scenarios.


Airline passenger loyalty programs

Principal Investigators: Dr. Leong Choon Heng and Saravanan Dharmalingam


This research examines the effect of loyalty programs on the choice made by airline passengers. The amount of influence that different dimensions of loyalty programs exert on passengers is measured using quantitative methods.


Manpower scheduling with time window and skills set consideration: a case study on in-flight catering service

Principal Investigators: Dr. Ada S.F Ng, Lim Pei Sim and Wong Mei Kuan


Loading teams of the in-flight catering service provider have to upload food to aircrafts within a time window, i.e. between the arrival and departure of the aircraft. Besides, different aircraft types require different loading skills. Therefore, a manager needs to plan the daily loading schedule with consideration of the time windows of the aircrafts as well as the skills sets of the loading teams. Unfortunately, last minute changes of the time window of the aircrafts are common. Therefore a manager also needs to react to these changes by re-allocating some of the loading teams based on the pre-defined loading schedule. This project aims to develop a system to assist managers in managing the workforce and operation.

Completed Student Theses in This Research Area

Chew, Siang Chye, 2004. "Modeling Airline Cost Function: The Role of Institutional Inertia." - supervised by Mr. Niranjan Krishnan.

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