City of Chicago (Department of Aviation) – Route Development

We were appointed to provide on-going route development support for Chicago O’Hare and Midway Airports.

Key activities include:

  • A detailed analysis of the international market served from Chicago using DoT and MIDT data, including point to point demand, onward connectivity, journey purpose and market capture.
  • A gap analysis to identify specific route opportunities and the airlines and alliances that could fly specific routes.
  • A market engagement strategy to ensure focus on marketing route opportunities.
  • Development of detailed route traffic forecasts including inbound and outbound volumes, business/leisure splits, connecting flows and cabin/yield data.
  • Presentation of material to airline commercial managers as part of the marketing pitches.
  • Deal brokering and commercial negotiations to secure new services.

As part of this assignment, we have also developed a Quality Service Index (QSI) model. The QSI model is used to estimate the share that a new service could potentially capture of the connecting demand. The QSI model calculates the potential share by taking into consideration the following factors:

  • Total elapsed time – the total time that passes from the time of departure of the first flight until the arrival the second flight.  Routings that involved a connection at a connecting point that was less than the minimum connecting time (MCT) were excluded.
  • Connection type – online, interline versus codeshare/alliance connection.
  • Frequency – the total number of times per week that a particular routing is possible. Multi-stop routings were excluded from the considered analysis.

The results of this approach have been validated by a number of the world’s leading airlines.