Transport and Telecommunication Vol. 20, no. 2, 2019

Transport and Telecommunication, 2019, volume 20, no. 2, 162–174 Transport and Telecommunication Institute, Lomonosova 1, Riga, LV-1019, Latvia DOI 10.2478/ttj-2019-0015

A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE TEN LONGEST ULTRA-LONG-RANGE AIR ROUTES

Glenn Baxter 1, Panarat Srisaeng 1, Graham Wild 2

1 School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Suan Dusit University Huahin Prachaup Khiri Khan, Thailand, 77110 [email protected]; [email protected]. 2 School of Engineering, RMIT University Box 2476, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000 [email protected]

In recent times, several have commenced the operation of ultra-long-range (ULR) services. Using a mixed methods research approach, this paper examines the deployment, the target passenger market segments, the configurations, the flight stage lengths and the available seat kilometres (ASKs) produced on the world’s ten longest air routes. The study found that some airlines are operating ultra-long-range services on a hub-to-hub basis, whilst other airlines are operating these services to open new spoke city markets. The case airlines are targeting the premium and leisure market segments. The Boeing 787-9 is the most popular aircraft type for these services followed by the -800 and the Boeing B777-200LR aircraft. Qatar Airways Doha to Auckland service has the longest flight stage length (14,535 kilometres). The other 9 air routes all exceed 13,400 kilometres in length. The greatest number of annual ASKs are produced on the Dubai to Auckland services (5.09 billion ASKs) and the smallest number of annual ASKs are on the Qantas Airways Perth to London services (2.49 billion ASKs). Keywords: airlines, aircraft, available seat kilometres (ASKs), case study, passenger transportation, ultra-long-range flights

1. Introduction

The air transport industry is critical for global commerce and tourism and it also plays a fundamental role in facilitating economic growth, this is particularly so for developing countries (Air Transport Action Group, 2017). In 2016, the world’s airlines carried around 3.79 billion passengers and 52.6 million tonnes of (International Organization, 2017). In the world air transport industry, passenger airlines have defined and implemented two principal business models: the full-service network carrier (FSNC) and the low-cost carrier (LCC) models (Taneja, 2016; Whyte and Lohmann, 2017). A “full service network carrier” (FSNC) is an that focuses on providing a broad range of both pre-flight and inflight services, including different cabin classes in their aircraft, and connecting flights (Ehmer et al., 2008) The full-service network carrier’s business model forms the focus of the present study. Over the past decade, several of the world’s major full-service network carriers (FSNCs) have commenced ultra-long-range (ULR) services. According to Baxter and Bardell (2017), an ultra-long- range (ULR) flight is any non-stop flight carrying an economically meaningful payload of passengers and air cargo over more than 7,000 nautical miles (nm) (12,964 km). Emirates Airlines (IATA Airline Code EK) commenced non-stop services between its Dubai hub and Los Angeles in 2008. (IATA Airline Code DL) commenced non-stop services from Atlanta to Johannesburg and return in June 2009, (IATA Airline Code EY) launched non-stop services from Abu-Dhabi to Los Angeles service in June 2014, Qantas Airways (IATA Airline Code QF) began services from Sydney to Dallas Fort Worth in September 2014, United (IATA Airline Code UA) and Singapore (SQ) Airlines San Francisco to Singapore routes in June and October 2016, respectively. In addition, Emirates Airline commenced non-stop services from Dubai to Auckland in March 2016, Qatar Airways (IATA Airline Code QR) began Doha to Auckland service in February 2017, launched Los Angeles to Singapore non-stop services in October 2017. More recently, United Airlines launched a non-stop service from Houston to Sydney in January 2018 and Qantas Airways began non-stop services from Perth to

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London’s Heathrow at the end of March 2018. These ultra-long-range (ULR) services are the focus of the current study. The objective of this study is to examine the aircraft deployment, the target passenger market segments, the aircraft cabin configuration, and the available seat kilometres (ASKs) produced on these ULR services. Airlines sell passenger kilometres but produce seat kilometres. Thus, like revenue passenger kilometres, available seat kilometres (ASKs) reflect the spatial nature of the airline’s output (Gillen, 2017). Available seat kilometres (ASKs) is the total number of seats offered on a flight multiplied by the stage length flown by the aircraft. ASKs are commonly used as a key measure of air transport passenger capacity in the global airline industry (Gross and Klemmer, 2014; O'Connell and Williams, 2016).

2. Background

2.1. Airline market segmentation Capturing a competitive advantage in the air transport industry is quite difficult. Consequently, it may be an easier option for a successful firm to capture a smaller niche or a segment of a market. According to Reid and Bojanic (2010), “market segmentation is pursuing a marketing strategy whereby the total potential market is divided into homogeneous sub-sets of customers, each of which responds differently to the marketing mix of the organization” (p. 127). Historically, airlines have segmented passengers into two discrete categories which are based on the purpose for travel: business and leisure (Fig. 1) (Cook and Billig, 2017, Clark, 2017; Shaw, 2016). Airlines have also sub-segmented the market segments into discrete sub-segments. Business travellers may be travelling to attend conferences, or they may be travelling on a marketing visit or travelling on a reward program incentive. Leisure travellers may be travelling on holidays, or for study purposes, or visiting friends and relatives (VFRs) (Fig. 1). Importantly, there are some markets that principally attract business travellers. In contrast, there are some other markets that are dominated by leisure travellers (Cook and Billig, 2017).

Figure 1. Airline passenger market segments and sub-segments

2.2. Aircraft cabin configurations The travel classes on aircraft are typically divided into a 2, 3 or 4 class cabin layouts. Domestic airline services usually offer both business and economy classes. On international flights, an airline may configure an aircraft with a , , premium economy, and cabin configurations (Singh, 2008). Other airlines may decide to offer a 3-class cabin configuration on their international services, which comprises first class, business class and economy class. The aircraft interior layout and configuration affect the width and pitch of each seat, and thereby, determines the amount space that is available to each passenger (Doganis, 2010). A key aspect of passenger-related comfort relates to the width and pitch of the . Pitch is the distance between two identical seats (Vasigh et al., 2018), and is a measure of the leg-room that is available to passengers. Individual space in the aircraft appears to be the key comfort variable for passengers, but so too is the quality of the seating provided by the airline. Comfort is regarded as very important for passengers flying on long-haul intercontinental services, as well as for those flying on business and those travelling on leisure/holiday trips (Doganis, 2010).

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A number of airlines have introduced premium economy cabins on their long-haul routes (Clark, 2016; Doganis, 2010). Based on the concerns of many airline customers that there is a clearly defined requirement for a product that falls between an airline’s economy and business class in long-haul markets (Taneja, 2005), Virgin Atlantic Airways was the first airline to introduce a premium economy product in the mid-1990s for passengers willing to pay the higher end economy fares (Doganis, 2006; Taneja, 2005). The objective of the premium economy cabin class is to provide passengers paying the full economy air fare with a dedicated and quieter aircraft cabin with several inches more leg-room than the normal economy class and better in-flight catering than that offered in economy class (Doganis, 2010). This product has proved to be quite popular with those high-end leisure travellers and business travellers paying for their airfare themselves. The use of the premium economy product is also considered favourable during economic downturns when business people often do not want to pay the higher business class airfares (Taneja, 2005).

2.3. Full-service network carrier route network design and strategies

As previously noted, the FSNC business model is typically based upon the operations of a hub- and-spoke route network (Baxter and Bardell, 2017; Whyte and Lohmann, 2017). In the FSNC hub-and- spoke system, airlines develop their networks by combining features from non-stop and multi-stop routing patterns. The hub operational system is based on flights arriving from multiple points (spokes) at a hub airport where passengers, and air cargo connect to flights departing to multiple points. So, after a short turnaround period, an equally substantial number of turn-around flights travel out along the spoke routes from the hub airport. The hub airport thereby acts as a gathering and consolidation point for flights operating to and from multiple destinations (Dempsey and Gesell, 1997; Reynolds-Feighan 1994). The hub-and-spoke strategy of FSNCs leads to a focus on primary . These are airports, which are in a highly populated urban area/region or business centre, and normally serving more than several million passengers per annum (Belobaba, 2016). As the numbers of passengers expands on in an origin and destination market (O&D) or , it becomes economically viable for airlines to deploy larger aircraft types and/or provide more frequent services. Furthermore, in the airline industry, there are often “thin” routes, that is, routes that have a small number of passengers per day, and “dense” routes, where there are substantial numbers of passengers travelling each day (Morrison, 2015). Dense air travel routes will have more services, which will be more convenient for the airline’s passengers (Forsyth et al., 2016).

3. Research Method

This study used a mixed methods research design (Creswell, 2014; Leavy, 2017; Teddlie and Tashakkor, 2009) that was exploratory in nature. The study followed an inductive approach using both qualitative and quantitative research methods (Crowther and Lancaster, 2008; Lancaster, 2005). The qualitative and quantitative data for this study was obtained from a range of documents and sources, including airline websites, airline and industry reports, airline press releases and air transport and airport industry-related magazines, and industry press articles. The study therefore used secondary data, specifically organizational records, to investigate the research problem in the qualitative part of the study. The three principles of data collection suggested by Yin (2018) were followed in this study: the use of multiple sources of case evidence, creation of a database on the subject, and the establishment of a chain of evidence. The documents collected for the study were examined by document analysis. Document analysis is frequently used by researchers when conducting case studies. Document analysis focuses on the information and data from formal documents and company records that are gathered in the research project (Oates, 2006; Ramon Gil-Garcia, 2012). The documents collected for the study were examined according to four criteria: authenticity, credibility, representativeness and meaning (Scott, 2004, 2014; Scott and Marshall, 2009). All the documents gathered for the study were downloaded into a case study database (Yin, 2018). The documents gathered for the study were all in English. Each document was carefully assessed, and key themes were coded and recorded. In addition, to prevent bias occurring in the qualitative analysis, documents from different sources were analysed in the study (van Schoor, 2017). This approach helped verify the themes that were detected in the documents collected in the study (Morris, 2017).

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To explain the qualitatively observed difference, some quantitative measures were utilised. These include the Fisher exact test to measure the degree of association between non-parametric (ordinal and or nominal) variables. This was utilised in place of the more common Chi-Squared test, as the sample sizes are so low, and hence, the conditions for the Chi-Squared test are violated (Sheskin, 2004; Weinberg and Abramowitz, 2008). The Fisher exact tests were carried out in SPSS (Weinberg and Abramowitz, 2008). In addition to this, a Mann-Whitney U test was utilised to test the difference between sample medians (Israel, 2008; Naghshpour, 2016). Furthermore, correlation metrics were also calculated, including both the Pearson’s correlation coefficient and the Spearman’s ranked correlation coefficient (Sharma, 2005; Weinberg and Abramowitz, 2008).

4. Case Study Results

Table 1 shows all of the relevant information for the ULR services investigated. The data is ranked based on the distance (in kilometres), and flight number indicates which airline is offering the service. Of note are the commencement dates, showing when each service began operating. It should also be noted that the cabin configuration of all services is mixed between premium and economy, while the exact mix (first class etc) is indicated for each service.

4.1. Geographical location of airlines operating ultra-long-range services

Figure 4a shows the geographical location of the airlines that were operating the ten longest air routes at the time of the study. As can be observed in Figure 4a, the three major Middle East-based airlines – Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways – operate four of the world’s longest air routes. These carriers have been very successful in exploiting their favourable geographical location and have developed extensive route networks that link their hub airports with key markets all around the world. Also, as can be seen in Figure 2a, Delta Airlines and United Airlines, both headquartered in the United States, are also operating ultra-long-range services (four routes). In the Asia/Pacific region, there are only two airlines operating ultra-long-haul services – Qantas Airways and . At the time of the study, there were no African nor European-based airlines operating ultra-long-range services. Figure 4b shows that United Airlines operates the most ultra-long-range routes (28% of total) from their key hubs located in Los Angeles and San Francisco to Singapore. Both United Airlines and Singapore Airlines are members of the Star Global passenger alliance. Thus, United Airlines can potentially expand the passenger traffic base on these services through alliance arrangements with Singapore Airlines. Emirates Airline and Qantas Airways both account for 18 per cent of the top ten ultra-long services. Qantas is a member of the global , and thus, the airline’s services from Sydney to Dallas Fort Worth link up with , a fellow oneworld alliance member, thereby enabling both airlines to expand their passenger traffic volumes. Similarly, the Qantas ultra-long-range services from Perth to London enable the airline to tap into other oneworld members services at London Heathrow Airport. Qatar Airways has linked Auckland, a spoke city, into its global route network. Qatar Airways is able to leverage its global network to optimise passenger traffic on its services from Doha to Auckland and Auckland to Doha. Emirates Airline has a similar strategy, and its services from Dubai to Auckland and Dubai to Los Angeles and return are carefully timed to enable passengers to connect onto flights to key spoke cities, many of which are major cities, via the airport’s hub at Dubai Airport. Singapore Airlines service from Singapore to San Francisco is a hub-to-hub service as it links its major hub at Singapore’s Changi Airport with United Airlines hub at San Francisco (and potentially other members operating to San Francisco. Singapore Airlines operates an extensive Australasian, Asia and Sub-continent route network, and consequently, the airline can source passenger traffic originating in the USA and carry these passengers to the Changi Hub where the passengers can connect to outbound Singapore Airlines outbound flights to their destination. The Etihad Airways service from Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles is a spoke flight as it links the airline’s hub at Abu Dhabi Airport with Los Angeles. As noted earlier, Etihad Airways also operates a hub-and-spoke route network and the addition of Los Angeles as a spoke city provides the airline with an opportunity to source Los Angeles destined passenger traffic originating from multiple spoke cities throughout its network. A similar situation applies on the Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi sector where United States origin passengers can transfer to outbound flights from Abu Dhabi airport to their destination. Figure 2b shows that Delta Airlines, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines each account for 9% of the total ultra-long-range services operated at the time of the study.

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Table 1. Key statistics for the ULR services Flight City Pairs Frequency Aircraft Cabin Distance ASKs Commenced QR9201 DOH-AKL Daily Boeing B777-200LR 42J217Y 14,535 1,374,066,225 5/02/2017 QR9211 AKL-DOH Daily Boeing B777-200LR 42J217Y 14,535 1,374,066,225 5/02/2017 QF92 PER-LHR Daily Boeing 787-9 42J28W166Y 14,499 1,248,943,860 24/03/2018 QF102 LHR-PER Daily Boeing 787-9 42J28W166Y 14,499 1,248,943,860 24/03/2018 EK4483 DXB-AKL Daily A380-800 14F76J401Y 14,201 2,545,032,215 1/03/2016 EK4493 AKL-DXB Daily A380-800 14F76J401Y 14,201 2,545,032,215 1/03/2016 UA374 LAX-SIN Daily Boeing 787-9 48J63W141Y 14,114 1,298,205,720 27/10/2017 UA364 SIN-LAX Daily Boeing 787-9 48J63W141Y 14,114 1,298,205,720 27/10/2017 UA1015 IAH-SYD Daily Boeing 787-9 48J63W141Y 13,834 1,272,451,320 18/01/2018 UA1005 SYD-IAH Daily Boeing 787-9 48J63W141Y 13,834 1,272,451,320 18/01/2018 QF76 SYD-DFW Daily Airbus A380-800 14F64J35W371Y 13,805 2,438,791,300 29/09/2014 QF86 DFW-SYD Daily Airbus A380-800 14F64J35W371Y 13,805 2,438,791,300 29/09/2014 SQ327 SIN-SFO Daily -900 XWB 42J24W187Y 13,593 1,255,245,585 23/10/2016 SQ317 SFO-SIN Daily Airbus A350-900 XWB 42J24W187Y 13,593 1,255,245,585 23/10/2016 UA18 SFO-SIN Daily Boeing 787-9 48J63W141Y 13,593 1,250,284,140 1/06/2016 UA28 SIN-SFO Daily Boeing 787-9 48J63W141Y 13,592 1,250,284,140 1/06/2016 DL2009 ATL-JNB Daily Boeing B777-200LR J37W36Y218 13,582 1,442,612,130 1/06/2009 DL2019 JNB-ATL Daily Boeing B777-200LR J37W36Y218 13,582 1,442,612,130 1/06/2009 EY17110 AUH-LAX Daily Boeing B777-300ER F8J40Y282 13,503 1,626,436,350 1/06/2014 EY17010 LAX-AUH Daily Boeing B777-300ER F8J40Y282 13,503 1,626,436,350 1/06/2014 EK21511 DXB-LAX Daily Airbus A380-800 14F76J401Y 13,420 2,405,065,300 3/12/2013 EK21611 LAX-DXB Daily Airbus A380-800 14F76J401Y 13,420 2,405,065,300 3/12/2013

Legend: AKL=Auckland, DOH= Doha, LHR=London Heathrow Airport, PER=Perth, DXB= Dubai, LAX= Los Angeles, SIN=Singapore, IAH= Houston, SYD=Sydney, DFW= Dallas Fort Worth, SFO= San Francisco, ATL= Atlanta, JNB=Johannesburg, AUH= Abu Dhabi. J=Business class, Y=Economy class, W=Premium economy, F=First class. Sources: Adapted from 1 Biradar (2017), 2 Qantas Airways (2018a), 3 Emirates Airline (2018), 4 United Airlines (2017a), 5 United Airlines (2017b), 6 Qantas Airways (2018b), 7 Singapore Airlines (2016, 2018a), 8 United Airlines (2016, 2018), 9 Delta Air Lines (2008, 2018), 10 Etihad Airways (2014), 3 Emirates Airline (2016) and Great Circle Mapper (2018).

a) b)

Figure 2. a) The geographical location of the full-service network carriers operating ultra-long-range services, and b) the individual airlines operating these services. Legend: DL=Delta Airlines, EK=Emirates Airline, EY=Etihad Airways. QF=Qantas Airways. QR=Qatar Airways, SQ=Singapore Airlines, UA=United Airlines

4.2. The full-service network carriers ultra-long-range services flight stage lengths

The flight stage length distances for the world’s current full-service network carriers ultra-long- range services are presented in Figure 3. A flight stage length is the typical length of an air route between two airports over which an aircraft is flown (Vogel, 2016, p.82). As can be seen in the figure, the top ten ultra-long-haul routes all exceed 13,400 kilometres in length. The two longest routes exceed 14,400 kilometres in length (Fig. 3) with the shortest route being the Emirates Airline Dubai/Los Angeles/Dubai service at 13,420 kilometres (Fig. 3). Figure 3 indicates the norm-referenced scores for each of the city pairs, and it can be observed that all of the scores fall within the +/- 2 band, indicating that the distances are randomly distributed, such that there are no extreme differences between the distances flown.

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Figure 3. The distribution of aircraft type on the full-service network carriers ultra-long-range services

4.3. Comparison of the full-service network carrier aircraft deployment on ultra-long-range services

4.3.1. The candidate aircraft for ultra-long-range services: a brief overview The is a long range, twin-engine aircraft (Kumar, 2016). Boeing Commercial Airplanes only built 59 Boeing 777-200LR aircraft between 2006 and 2013 (Flight International, 2015). These aircraft have been deployed on niche ultra-long-range services that only comprise a few percent of the world’s airline route networks (Leeham News and Comment, 2013). The Boeing B777-300ER can seat 396 passengers in a two-class seating configuration. The aircraft has a maximum range of 7,370 nautical miles (13,649 km) (Boeing Commercial Airplanes, 2018). The Boeing 787 family includes the 787-8, 787-9 and the 787-10 models. The 787-8 entered commercial service in October 2011 with Japan-based All Nippon Airlines (Norris, 2015). The aircraft has a range of up to 7,850 nautical miles. The B787-9 entered commercial service in 2014 (Aircraft Commerce, 2016b). The Boeing B787 is a mid-sized aircraft, seating between 220-280 passengers, depending upon the operating airlines preferred seating configuration (Aircraft Commerce, 2012, 2016c). The Boeing B787-9 is slightly larger than the -8 variant and will typically have around 280 seats when operated in a three class (first, business, economy) cabin configuration. The B787-10 is the largest variant of the B787 family (Aircraft Commerce, 2014). The Boeing 787-10 entered commerce service with Singapore Airlines in May 2018 (Singapore Airlines, 2018b). The Boeing 787 has been marketed to airlines as being an ideal platform for airlines to operate new routes and origin-destination (O&Ds) opportunities on longer-haul sectors that cannot sustain large widebody aircraft operations. These routes may include new point-to-point services between secondary cities. This can be achieved as the B787s unit costs per available seat mile or kilometres are comparable with larger aircraft, thus making routes with lower levels of demand economically viable (Aircraft Commerce, 2016a). Due to the Boeing 787’s long-range capability, the aircraft is capable of connecting almost any two airports in the world, with few operating and performance restrictions. The extensive long-haul capability provides operators with significant and valuable flexibility in planning their route network and flight schedules. When Boeing committed to developing the 7E7 (now the B787), Airbus launched the Airbus A350, which was derived from the -200/-300 aircraft, in response (Aircraft Commerce, 2005; Qui, 2005). The Airbus A350 was therefore based on the same and fuel capacity as the A330-200/-300. The principal difference between the A350 and the A330 was the use of carbon fibre in the A350’s wing structure and the A350 used the General Electric (GE) (GENX) engines (Qui, 2005). The aircraft entered commercial service with Qatar Airways on the 15th January 2015 (Kingsley-Jones, 2015). The Airbus A350-900XWB (extra widebody) is being offered as an aircraft with a range of 8,500 nautical miles, with a nominal 270 seating configuration (Wall, 2006; Wall and Mecham, 2006). The range and seating capabilities of these two aircraft types enables them to operate most origin and destination (O&Ds) or city-pairs on a non-stop basis (Qui, 2005). The Airbus A350-900XWB standard

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tri-class cabin configuration and seating capacity places it in direct competition against the Boeing B777- 200 ER and the Boeing B787-10 aircraft (Aircraft Commerce, 2006). The origins of the Airbus A380 aircraft date back to 1988, when the initial interest in the Airbus ultra-high capacity aircraft first occurred (Flight International, 2005). The Airbus A380 aircraft program was formally launched on 19 December 2000 (Kingsley-Jones, 2005). The Airbus A380 was designed to operate on both existing and probable future high-density routes that were predominantly operated by the Boeing B747-400 aircraft. These routes included Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo to Europe and the United States (Aircraft Commerce, 2002). The first flight of the Airbus A380 aircraft took place on the 27th April 2005 (Pilling, 2005). On October 15, 2007 the first Airbus A380-800 aircraft was delivered to Singapore Airlines. Singapore airlines commenced Airbus A380 commercial operations on 25 October 2007, when it commenced daily Airbus A380 flights between Singapore and Sydney (Kingsley-Jones, 2007, 2008). There are two engine families offered for the Airbus A380. These are the Engine Alliance GP7200 series and the Rolls Royce Trent 900 series engines. The Airbus A380-841 comes equipped with the Rolls Royce Trent 970 engines, whilst the A380-861 has the Engine Alliance GP7270 engines (Aircraft Commerce, 2015). The aircraft has a maximum range of 15,200 kilometres and a maximum take-off weight of 575 tonnes.

4.3.2. The full-service network carrier’s fleet deployment on ultra-long-range services Figure 4 shows the breakdown of the aircraft types that have been deployed by the full-service network carriers on their ultra-long-range services. The most popular aircraft is the Boeing 787-9 (37%), followed by the Airbus A380-800 (27%), and the Boeing B777-200LR (18%) (Fig. 4). Despite the ability of the Airbus A350-900XWB to operate ultra-long-range services only Singapore Airlines has deployed this aircraft type on the ultra-long-range Singapore to San Francisco air route. Despite the long-range capability of the Boeing B777-300ER, Etihad Airways was the only case airline operating this aircraft type on its ultra-long-range flight from Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles (Fig. 4). Figure 5 shows the distribution of various aircraft features of each of the 5 regional pairs within the ultra-long-range market. The first of these is the distribution of aircraft manufacturer; a Fisher exact test of this distribution suggests that there is no association between regional pair and aircraft manufacturer (p-value = 0.655). Similarly, for the number of engines, the resultant Fisher exact test shows no association between the regional pair and the number of engines utilised (p-value = 0.479), which historically would have seen an association; however, extended operations (ETOPS) has seen the growth in range of modern twin engine aircraft, displacing the -500 and B747-400ER aircraft types.

Figure 4. The distribution of aircraft type on the full-service network carriers ultra-long-range services

To analyse the relationship between aircraft manufacturer and both sector length and ASKs, a Mann Whitney U test was utilised. The relationship with regional pair and aircraft was previously assessed using a Fisher exact test, so it would be reasonable to assume the Mann Whitney U test would highlight a similar result. This was noted (p-value = 0.18), for the ranking of distances was independent of the aircraft manufacturer; that is, the median distance for Airbus and Boeing aircraft were similar. However, for ASKs (p-value = 0.026), the ranking of ASKs was dependent on the manufacturer, with the median ASKs of Airbus aircraft being greater than the median ASKs for Boeing aircraft.

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a) b) Figure 5. Distribution of aircraft features by region pairs, a) aircraft manufacture and b) number of engines

4.4. Comparison of the full-service network carrier cabin classes on ULR services Table 2 compares the travel classes operated by those full-service network carriers operating ultra- long-range air services. Of the seven full-service network carriers operating ultra-long-range services, only Emirates Airline and Qantas Airways offered a first-class product (Table 2). However, all the airlines offered a business class product and an economy class product. Delta Airlines, Qantas Airways, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines all offered a premium economy product on their ultra-long-haul services (Table 2). As previously noted, airlines have historically segmented the air travel market into the premium and leisure market segments. As Table 2 shows, the seven airlines currently operating the world’s longest ultra-long-range services (ULR), offer both premium and leisure travel classes on these services. Significant differences in aircraft interiors are observed relative to the regional pairs the aircraft are utilised to service (Fig. 6). First, with the availability of the first-class cabin, it is noted that the resultant Fisher exact test shows an association (p-value = 0.023), with the cabin being more commonly associated with flights to and from the Middle East. Similarly, for the availability of premium economy, there is also an association to the regional pair (p-value < 0.001), where all flights servicing the Middle East do not have premium economy, and the other regional pairs provide premium economy.

Table 2. Comparison of the cabin classes offered by the full-service network carriers on ULR services Airline First Class Business Class Premium Economy Economy Class Delta Airlines    Emirates Airline    Etihad Airways   Qantas Airways A380     Qantas Airways B789    Qatar Airways   Singapore Airlines    United Airlines   

a) b) Figure 6. Distribution of aircraft interior by region pairs, a) first class cabin availability and b) premium economy availability

4.5. An assessment of the available seat kilometres (ASKs) performed on ULR services The most common measure of an airline’s output is the available seat kilometres (ASKs) or available seat miles (ASMs) (Gillen, 2017). ASKs are used as a measure of available passenger capacity

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(Heshmati and Kim, 2016). Available seat kilometres (ASKs) are the total number of seats offered on a flight multiplied by the stage length flown (O'Connell and Williams, 2016). Figure 7 shows the three largest sources of available seat kilometres (ASKs) on the top ten ultra- long-range air routes are those on which the large capacity Airbus A380-800 aircraft is deployed (Fig. 7). This is followed by the Delta Airlines Atlanta/Johannesburg/Atlanta service. The Delta Airlines Boeing 777-200LR has a higher seating than that offered by Qatar Airways Boeing B777-200LR seating configuration, and hence, this contributed to the larger volume of ASKs produced by Delta Airlines. As expected, there is a strong correlation between the seating capacity and the ASKs. This is illustrated in Figure 8, which shows the parametric (Pearson’s) and non-parametric (Spearman’s) correlation between aircraft seats and ASKs, both of which are statistically significant (p-value < 0.001).

Figure 7. The distribution of available seat kilometres on the full-service network carriers ultra-long-range services

a) b) Figure 8. The correlation between a) total aircraft seats and available seat kilometres (ASKs) using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient, and between b) the relative rankings of these using the Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient

5. Conclusions

This paper has examined, for the first time, the aircraft deployment, the target passenger market segments, the flight stage lengths and the available seat kilometres produced on the top ten ultra-long- range air routes. Despite the increasing trend in airlines commencing ultra-long-range air services, there has been very limited research undertaken on such initiatives. Thus, this study adds some valuable insights to the literature. The study was underpinned by a case study research framework that followed the recommendations of Yin (2018). The study found that the most popular aircraft deployed on the top ten air routes is the Boeing 787-9, followed by the Airbus A380-800, and the Boeing B777-200LR. Despite the long-range capability of the Airbus A350-900XWB, only Singapore Airlines has deployed this aircraft on an ultra-long-range service at the time of the present study. Etihad Airways was the only

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airline deploying a Boeing B777-300ER on an ultra-long-range air route (Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles and return). The Qantas Airways Sydney to Dallas Fort Worth Airbus A380-800 service and the Qantas Boeing 787-9 service from Perth to London are operated on a hub-to-hub basis, The Sydney to Dallas Fort Worth service links up with fellow oneworld alliance partner American Airlines as does the Perth to London service link up with fellow oneworld alliance partners operating at London Heathrow Airport. United Airlines and Singapore Airlines, both key members of the Star global alliance, have pursued a similar strategy in that both airlines operate their ultra-long-range services from the key hubs of Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Singapore. The hub-to-hub services enhances the available travel options for passengers whilst at the same time optimizing the revenue generated on the ultra-long-range services. In contrast, the Delta Airlines service from Atlanta to Johannesburg, Emirates Airline Dubai to Los Angeles and return, the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles, the Qatar Airways Doha to Auckland and return, are examples of point-to-point services that have linked up new peripheral or spoke cities. The addition of a spoke city to their route networks strengthens these airlines product offerings. The target market segments for the airlines operating ultra-long-range services is the premium and leisure air travel markets. Emirates Airline and Qantas Airways are the only carriers offering a first-class product targeted at the premium passenger market. The case airlines all offered a business class product offering, and Delta Airlines, Qantas Airways, Singapore Airlines, and United Airlines offer a premium economy product on their ultra-long-range services. An economy class product was offered by all the airlines examined in the study. Economy class is primarily targeted at leisure travellers. The Qatar Airways Boeing B777-200LR service from Doha to Auckland has the longest flight stage length at 14,535 kilometres and this is slightly longer than the Boeing 787-9 service operated by Qantas Airways from Perth to London, which has a flight stage length of 14,499 kilometres. The shortest flight stage length was the Emirates Airline Airbus A380 service from Dubai to Los Angeles (13,420 kilometres). The greatest number of ASKs are produced annually on the Emirates Airline Airbus A380-800 service from Dubai to Auckland and return (5.09 billion ASKs), followed by the Qantas Airways Airbus A380-800 service from Sydney to Dallas Forth Worth (4.87 billion ASKs) and the Emirates Airlines Airbus A380-800 service from Dubai to Los Angeles and return (4.81 billion ASKs). The Etihad Airways Boeing B777-300ER service from Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles and return generates 3.25 billion ASKs annually. The Boeing B777-200LR services operated by Delta Airlines from Atlanta to Johannesburg will generate an annual total of 2.88 billion ASKs. This is slightly greater than the 2.74 billion ASKs generated annually by Qatar Airways Boeing B777-200LR services from Doha to Auckland and return. United States-based United Airlines operates three ultra-long-range air routes with its fleet of Boeing 787-9 aircraft. The United Airlines Los Angeles to Singapore and return, Houston to Sydney and return, and San Francisco will produce 2.59 billion ASKs, 2.54 billion ASKs, and 2.50 billion ASKs, respectively. The Qantas Airways Boeing 787-9 service operated from Perth to London produces the smallest annual number of ASKs (2.49 billion ASKs). The ASKs generated on an air route are influenced by the aircraft size and flight stage length. A limitation of the current study was that key business performance metric of revenue passenger kilometres performed (RPKs) for these services were not available in the public domain. Should these data become available then a future study could compare the ASKs and RPKs to identify how successful airlines have been in optimising their passenger traffic on their ultra-long-range services. The study could also examine if there are directional differences in the RPKs generated by class of travel.

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