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.