Demand forecasting for domestic air transportation in Turkey

Abstract

Accuracy in estimating air transport demand is a key element while an aviation company is planning its short term or long term business plan regardless of its status, being an incumbent or a startup company. Domestic Air Travel Industry in Turkey has dramatically grown in recent years especially after the deregulation which resulted in the renewal of air transportation policy in 2003. However, there is no relevant scientific research in the literature to analyze the determining factors on air travel demand for domestic market by city pair level in Turkey. A semi-logarithmic regression model is generated in order to estimate the domestic air travel demand in means of number of passengers carried per city pair. Airline passenger data of 2011 out of 42 served cities in Turkey are used to establish the model. Then, 2010 data are used to test the prediction performance of the model. Accuracy level is found to be significantly successful on estimating passenger demand for any domestic city pair. Due to its city pair basis and acceptable level of accuracy, the estimation model can be utilized in many areas of aviation industry, such as determining flight frequency on a route, forecasting the size of air passenger traffic for potential new airports or potential new routes etc. © Sivrikaya and Tunç; Licensee Bentham Open.