ABSTRACT
There are approximately 200 airports in Europe which are classified as underutilized, with fewer than 1 million passengers per annum: the majority of these 'Class D' airports – to use the European Commission (EC) nomenclature – are loss-making, publicly owned and subsidized by central, regional or local governments (Caves and Gosling, 1999; European Commission, 2005; Scheers, 2001). This phenomenon is also apparent in Great Britain, where the lack of a national airport policy resulted in the development of a large number of regional airports without consideration of what was offered at nearby competing airports (Graham, 2004). Hence, several neighbouring regions have airports with overlapping catchment areas (e.g. Liverpool – Manchester. Cardiff – Bristol, Birmingham – East Midlands, Newcastle – Teesside). Illustratively, the majority of the population in the United Kingdom has more than one regional airport within a 90-minute drive (Graham, 2004). Consequently, competitive pressure on airports has led airport managers to seek a passenger throughput increase to reach critical mass for the sustainable financial operation of their facilities.
