ABSTRACT
Yet, despite these positive factors, IATA insists that these are extremely challenging times for airlines, and not without reason. It refers not only to the sharp economic downturn and the absence of signs of an early recovery, but also to rising oil prices and to the impact of the recent influenza A (H1N1) pandemic. Cash flows are affected by weaker demand, and, after years of fare discounting and cost cutting, there is little scope for further action in these areas. All of the above has created a tension that would appear to be moving the industry closer to a paradigmatic change of its business models. Despite the undeniable negative impact of cyclical economic events, globalization has indeed opened windows of opportunity that continue to ensure longterm growth in the air transport industry. However, the downstream market of air travel and upstream market of airport and air traffic capacity seem to have lost their understanding of the underlying systemic condition, and the different speed at which they are evolving is threatening to generate a mismatch and to jeopardize the sector’s healthy development. And these are not the only tough challenges that lie ahead. In most developed countries, there is also growing concern with sustainability and the environment. However, interdisciplinary research on environmental attitudes and proenvironmental behaviour has studied people’s value orientations and found that they differ in their deeper sentiments towards the environment (Garling, in Hensher and Button, 2003, p. 728). This, in conjunction with an awareness that transport is essential to society’s well-being, is today resulting in ambivalent perceptions of and attitudes towards transportation in general. Moreover, while the societal context of transportation, and aviation in particular, is undoubtedly changing, attitudes towards air transport are possibly not as critical as they are towards other modes, especially surface transport. Nonetheless, an awareness and acknowledgement of the fact that the current technological paradigm in transportation is, by its very nature, unsustainable has formed the basis for research into innovative solutions. In many ways, air transport has long been a leader in technological advances and materials engineering, which has contributed to a historically low-impact footprint for the industry today. What is more, the industry and scientific community continue to strive for more efficient engines, enhanced aerodynamics and cleaner fuels, further highlighting the present concern with achieving a clean and sustainable air transport. Indeed, the recognition of the complex issues involved in the current technological debate, not only in air transport but in transport in general, has triggered even broader R&D efforts in relation to new engine technologies and cleaner fuels. This evolution, too, is characteristic of the kind of essential tension underlying paradigm shifts, and it has come about in response to a growing awareness of the “anomalies” that cause the unsustainability patterns observed in transport systems today. This has prompted efforts to either advance the conceptualization of new engines and cleaner fuels or to disprove the ability of the current paradigm to properly address the anomalies in respect of sustainability. In recent years, we have also seen the emergence of a new attitude in the aviation sector, with companies increasingly adopting more environmentally
responsible policies. Many airlines are going green, as it were, supporting environmentally friendly projects (such as reforestation to counter CO2 emissions) and implementing energy reduction measures at three levels: at the strategic level by the use of state-of-the-art equipment; at the tactical level by developing new processes; and at the operational level by implementing new and optimizing existing processes and by changing daily habits (such as increasing airconditioning temperatures, reducing cabin lighting in long-distance flights, etc.). Transport in general is coming under increasing societal and political pressures to innovate, creating a new policy context that is defined by a striving for climate change mitigation and a reduction in GHG emissions. The foregoing chapters have painted a clear picture of the consequences of this fundamentally changing context. The conclusions reached by the various authors may be summarized in just a few points, which we shall recap in the next sections: (1) the air transport market is a highly competitive playing field; (2) the industry’s business models have undergone profound changes in recent decades; (3) production systems are reaching their limits of improvement, and collaborative solutions are emerging; and (4) the new era is increasingly characterized by collaboration with other transport modes. All these elements are symptomatic of a paradigm shift that requires a strong research agenda for the coming years, as we shall argue in the final section of this chapter.
