Hub aviation system is an advanced air transport production organization form widely used by large airlines and airports in the world today. It has multiple functions, such as optimizing route structure, rationally allocating resources, enhancing enterprise competitiveness and promoting airport prosperity.
In the past, due to the limitation of conditions, China has never developed its own central airline network and hub airport. However, with the acceleration of world economic integration and the approach of China's accession to the WTO, China will fully participate in the international division of labor and international competition, so as to win in the competition and for the future sustainable development of China's air transport industry. We should actively study and vigorously promote the development and construction of hub aviation system in China. So what is a hub aviation system? What are its characteristics and significance? What conditions do you need to build a hub aviation system? What are our shortcomings? This paper intends to discuss these problems and talk about some immature views.
First, the emergence and characteristics of hub aviation system
Hub aviation system consists of hub route structure and hub airport.
(1) The structure of the central route.
Hub route structure is a new route layout model, which first appeared in the United States in the 1970s. Its characteristic is that there is no direct flight between cities with small passenger flow, and they are all connected by a hub airport. Through the hub airport, the flight connection and passenger and cargo transfer are carried out to achieve the purpose of rapid passenger and cargo transportation. Adopting the hub route structure has the following advantages for airlines:
Optimize resource allocation and reduce operating costs. The central route system is more economical than the city in the use of aircraft, crew, routes and the number of ground crew.
Improve the passenger load factor and passenger load factor of aircraft and improve the economic benefits of airlines.
Because the customers of the feeder line are concentrated on the trunk line, large and small airlines can foster strengths and avoid weaknesses.
Give full play to the rapid advantages of air transportation and improve the competitiveness of the industry.
Efficient flight connection shortens the travel time of passengers and improves the attractiveness of air transport.
The implementation of the central route structure depends on the construction of the hub airport, and a mature hub airport is the premise to realize the central route structure.
(2) Hub airport.
Hub airport is the node of the central route network and the distribution center of air passenger and cargo.
Its main features are:
A high proportion of transportation business.
Efficient flight connection ability.
The main advantages of establishing a hub airport are:
Promote the improvement of airport business volume and attract more flights to the airport for transit.
Increase the airport's aviation and non-aviation revenue.
Promote the development of economy and related industries in the surrounding areas. For example, the development of the tertiary industry such as catering, catering and tourism services.
It has created conditions for the development of the surrounding regional airports. Convenient service stimulates the demand for air transportation and brings vitality to small and medium-sized airports.
(c) Limitations of the hub aviation system.
Hub aviation system has advantages and disadvantages. Its disadvantage is that if the airport capacity is too small or inefficient, airports and routes are prone to congestion and congestion, which may cause flight delays and may spread to the entire aviation network. In order to solve these problems, some hub airports not only pay attention to improving the airport management level, but also pay attention to the long-term planning of the airport and gradually expand the airport scale. Some airports have adopted the way of building auxiliary airports near the hub airport to divert the passenger and cargo volume of the hub airport, which has alleviated the flight delay caused by congestion to some extent.
Second, the strategic significance of developing the hub aviation system
Developing hub aviation system is the basic condition and powerful means for us to participate in international division of labor and international competition.
(A) from the perspective of international division of labor.
With the acceleration of the regionalization and integration of the world economy, various forms of cooperation using economic means have emerged in the air transport industry. We call it an alliance between airlines. This alliance is expanding from bilateral to multilateral, and from regional to global. At present, there are hundreds of alliance projects involving airlines from various countries.
For airlines, one of the basic conditions for joining the global aviation alliance is to see whether the cooperative airlines have a huge aviation hub system. Because airlines have generally realized that connecting their own aviation hub networks with other people's aviation hub networks is one of the most effective ways to make profits.
At present, the main members of the global airline alliance have developed the aviation hub system. If we don't step up the construction of our own hub system, it is unlikely to be accepted by the global airline alliance. Even if we are accepted, our contribution to the airline alliance can hardly offset the actual benefits we get.
(2) From the perspective of participating in international competition.
At present, many countries with developed air transport rely on the advantages of aviation hub system to divert and plunder a large number of passengers and goods that belong to our airports and airlines.
Take the route between China and the United States as an example: by April 2006, 5438+0, China and the United States can fly 54 flights a week. Due to insufficient business volume, China put in less than 30 flights every week. Because the United States has an aviation hub network covering all parts of the United States, there are plenty of tourists. Not only have all the flights stipulated in the contract been used up, but it is also actively asking for new flights and carriers.
Looking at the China-Australia route again, at present, the direct flight capacity between China and Australia does not exceed 6.5438+0.5 million passengers per year, but according to the data provided by the China-Australia visa department, the passenger flow between China and Australia is about 350,000 passengers. The main reason is that China's neighboring countries, such as Singapore, Bangkok, China and Hongkong, diverted the passengers on the China-Australia route.
At present, the air transport network system in Europe and America has been basically finalized, and the aviation development pattern in the Asia-Pacific region is still taking shape. China's neighboring countries are actively strengthening the construction of hub airports in order to gain a favorable position in Asian air transport. At present, the second runway of Narita Airport in Tokyo is about to start, the third airport is still under planning, and the second runway is being built at Kansai Airport in Osaka. A new Incheon airport has been built in Seoul, and two runways and a terminal building in the first phase of the project have been put into operation. Bangkok is planning to build an airport; The expansion of Singapore airport is also planned.
Only by speeding up the construction of hub aviation system can we take the lead in the future Asia-Pacific air transport network structure, otherwise we will miss the development opportunity.
Three. Basic conditions for building a hub airport
The construction of hub airport needs certain conditions, including the following aspects:
(1) Excellent embedding position. That is, the location of the airport should be conducive to airlines to adopt the hub route layout model. We should not only consider the economy of the voyage, but also consider the potential development market and link it with the future development strategy.
(2) Huge air transport market and transit demand. One of the conditions for establishing a hub airport is to have a large local air transport market demand and the potential demand for transferring international passengers and goods. In some foreign gateway airports, the proportion of international transit passengers and goods generally accounts for more than 30% of the airport throughput. The high proportion of international passenger and cargo transit is one of the important signs of hub airports.
(3) Perfect airport transportation facilities. Including a flight area with multiple runways, transit facilities with reasonable flow, advanced flight information system and related supporting services.
(4) Qiangji Airlines. The performance is that the transportation capacity is sufficient and the fleet structure is reasonable, which can meet the needs of trunk lines and feeder lines. Take domestic and even foreign backbone airlines as partners. When a company has insufficient capacity, it can also unite the strength of other airlines.
(5) Stable and coordinated departmental cooperation. Including the close cooperation of hub airports, base airlines, air traffic control, customs, border inspection and other departments.
(6) a relaxed policy and legal environment. It refers to the relaxed business environment given by the government, which allows airlines to have appropriate decision-making power in terms of routes, fares, aircraft types and flight schedules. And the airport enjoys certain autonomy in the design process, charging standards, business projects and so on.
Fourthly, the problems existing in the construction of hub airports in China.
At present, there are still some problems and deficiencies in the construction of hub airports in China, mainly in the following aspects:
1. On the issue of building an aviation hub, some airports and airlines have not obtained * * *.
In essence, building an aviation hub is a development strategy of airlines. It is an effective means for air transport enterprises to gain competitive advantage in the competitive environment, so as to survive and develop. However, due to the limitations of subjective and objective conditions, some domestic airlines are not enthusiastic about the construction of aviation hubs and have insufficient understanding. The key point is that they don't look at the benefits of developing aviation hubs with a developmental perspective.
At the same time, some domestic airports show another bias on this issue, that is, they have not adjusted their subordinate position in the aviation hub system, divorced from airlines, and blindly and simply planned their own hub airports, which is likely to bring decision-making mistakes to the future hub airport construction.
2. China's airport transit support capacity is insufficient.
Due to historical reasons such as design, airports in China are basically designed according to the terminal building at present, and the demand of passenger transfer is not fully considered. Even the newly-built airport terminal has similar problems. Although we have reformed some airports to make them have certain transit capacity, they cannot fundamentally meet the needs of future airport development. To improve the airport's transit support capacity, it is necessary to design the transit process with the concept of hub aviation, improve the capacity of runway, apron, terminal and boarding gate, strengthen the scientific management of airspace, improve the flight connection capacity and shorten the transit time of passengers.
3. China's base airlines are small in scale.
To implement the hub aviation system, the airport must rely on the base airlines. Throughout the world's large hub airports, the business volume of their base airlines generally accounts for more than 50% of the airport business volume. For example, American Airlines accounts for 73.5% of its Atlanta hub airport, Northwest Airlines accounts for 79.8% of Detroit hub airport, and Lufthansa accounts for 60.8% of its Frankfurt hub airport. Air France's passenger and cargo volume accounts for more than 52% of its Paris hub airport. In contrast, the market share of base airlines in China's Capital Airport and Pudong Airport is only about 28%, which shows that the fleet size of base airlines in China is relatively low.
In absolute terms, the scale of foreign airlines is also quite large. American Airlines, which ranks first in the United States, has more than 900 aircraft, United Airlines, which ranks third, has nearly 600 aircraft, and Air France currently has more than 220 aircraft. The base airlines of China Pudong Airport and Capital Airport have more than 80 and 60 aircraft respectively. To a certain extent, it restricts the needs of the development of hub airports.
4. National supporting policies and legal measures need to be implemented.
At present, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has a good understanding of the importance of building aviation hubs, conducted various studies and put forward some reform ideas. However, because the construction of aviation hub is a complex system engineering, many problems are still being discussed and studied, so there has been no conclusion. The competent government departments have not put forward systematic and guiding policies and measures to mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties, especially airlines.
In addition, from the experience of developing hub airports abroad, the transformation from cities to hub route systems is bound to be accompanied by the adjustment of route management rights, the change of flight take-off and landing time and the revision of charging standards. The important reason for Japan, Canada and South Korea to develop aviation industry is to make full use of the sixth freedom right. China has not yet opened the right to operate from a third country. After arriving in China, foreign airlines must return to their original places before flying to other countries. Although this will help protect the right to operate China Airlines at the present stage, in the long run, we will lose many opportunities for cooperation and development.
In view of the above problems, we suggest to solve them from the following aspects:
1. First of all, the government should change its concept and give policy support and guidance to the development of aviation hubs.
Building an aviation hub is not only an objective requirement for the survival and development of air transport enterprises under competitive conditions, but also an inevitable result of market demand. However, judging from the current situation in China, because many economic relations have not been straightened out, it is not mature for enterprises to develop aviation hubs themselves. In this case, the government's support and promotion is particularly important. Therefore, the competent government departments should improve the system of policies and regulations as soon as possible, change the administrative regulations in the original system that do not meet the market requirements and the development of aviation hub construction, guide and promote the construction of aviation hub by both market and administrative means, create a good policy and legal environment for the construction of aviation hub, and mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties in building aviation hub.
2. Promote enterprise alliance and enhance enterprise strength.
Airlines are the main body to build hub-and-spoke routes, but at present, China's air transport enterprises are generally small in scale and weak in transport capacity, which is difficult to meet the needs of large-scale air transport capacity of hub-and-spoke routes. To reverse this disadvantage, in addition to requiring the government to increase investment moderately, alliance and cooperation among aviation enterprises is an effective way to solve the problem.
The alliance between air transport enterprises can take many forms, which can be the alliance and cooperation between airlines in route management, such as the cooperation between large airlines and small local airlines, or the alliance in other ways, such as developing strategic alliance and code sharing. In this way, small airlines specialize in regional markets and concentrate customers for backbone airlines; Backbone airlines operate trunk lines and expand markets for small and medium-sized airlines, thus giving support to small airlines.
In a word, enterprise alliance can centralize the management of resources, make the advantages of enterprises complement each other, avoid vicious and disorderly competition among enterprises, and give play to economies of scale.
3. The airport should change its concept and strengthen cooperation with airlines.
Since the separation of airports and airlines in China, the division of functions is not clear enough, which leads to repeated investment and serious overlapping of functions, and the awareness of airport service airlines is not strong. In order to realize the aviation hub strategy, the airport must change its business philosophy and establish its strategic positioning with aviation service as its core.
In the planning and construction of the hub airport, the airport must be based on meeting the operating needs of airlines. Therefore, airports should strengthen close contact and cooperation with airlines, solicit their opinions and requirements on the construction of hub airports, and strive to develop together with airlines while fully considering and meeting their needs.
In the management of future hub airports, airports should strengthen management functions, weaken management functions, give full play to the advantages of airlines, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties to build hub airports.
4. Broaden financing channels and create conditions for hub airport construction.
Capital is the basic condition for building a hub. Without capital and capital investment, the work of building and improving airport facilities cannot be carried out. Raising funds to form capital investment is an important condition to determine whether the hub airport can be built successfully. Therefore, the airport must first raise enough funds in exchange for the required factor input.
The problem to be solved in financing is how to obtain the funds needed by the airport, including who, when and how much money to raise. The amount of financing depends on the needs of investment, which involves the choice of financing methods, the comparison of financing costs, the optimization of capital structure and other issues.
At present, China's airport construction needs to increase a certain number of hub-and-spoke airports and improve most airport transit facilities, which require a lot of capital investment. It is difficult to complete the airport by yourself, so it needs the support of the state and local governments; On the other hand, in order to facilitate the absorption of foreign capital and social idle funds, the government should give a relaxed policy environment in airport construction financing and promote the construction of hub airports.
The capital demand for hub airport construction is large, and multi-mode and multi-channel financing can be adopted. At present, the airport is the most widely used source of government funds. The government mentioned here mainly refers to the central government and local governments, and can also be foreign governments, including international government agencies or agencies. Of course, it is also feasible to raise funds through commercial loans. In addition, issuing bonds, issuing stocks, leasing and BOT are also effective financing methods.
In a word, hub aviation system is an advanced air transportation organization mode, and it is not only necessary but also urgent to develop hub aviation system in China. As hub aviation is a complex and huge system engineering, it needs the full cooperation of government departments at all levels, airlines, airports and other related units to create conditions, thus promoting the development of China's hub aviation system.
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