Airlines increasingly adopt one-brand, multi-AOC (OB-MA) strategies-operating multiple Air Operator Certificates (AOCs) under a single brand identity. Despite their growing prevalence, the strategic rationale and contextual factors driving OB-MA strategy adoption remain underexplored in the academic literature. This study develops a structured framework for assessing the situational factors that shape the establishment and implementation of OB-MA strategies. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), we identify, classify, and rank 15 key criteria and sub-criteria. Our findings reveal that jurisdictional constraints, strategic trajectory, and organisational lifecycle status are central to the rationale for OB-MA implementation. This study introduces a distinction between ex-ante qualification criteria-which justify the initial need for OB-MA structures-and ex-post success criteria-which determine their long-term viability. This distinction enhances the practical relevance of the framework, equipping airline executives with a diagnostic tool to assess both the necessity and sustainability of OB-MA strategies in dynamic market environments. This research offers both theoretical background and practical guidance for OB-MA strategy development and contributes to a more systemic understanding of multi-AOC structures within airline strategy.

Integrated Management Systems (IMS) have gained increasing attention within the aviation industry as organisations seek to manage multiple, often fragmented, management systems more effectively. Despite this interest, empirical research and regulatory guidance on IMS implementation in aviation remain limited, with much of the existing literature focusing on conceptual models rather than practical application. Recent studies emphasize the importance of incorporating risk as a unifying element within IMS, given its central role across all management systems. This paper presents a case study evaluating the practical applicability of an IMS model developed by Meeûs, which aims to bridge the gap between theoretical integration frameworks and operational implementation. The model is derived from an analysis of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Safety Management System components and their alignment with various management systems, resulting in a standardized integration “language.” This language consists of a shared risk component and two classification mechanisms designed to identify events and underlying causes across multiple systems. The model further introduces the IMS Cube concept, enabling reported events to be reviewed holistically rather than in isolation within individual management systems. Using empirical data, this study analyses the feasibility of implementing the proposed IMS language and integrated process in an operational aviation context. The findings provide insights into the model’s behaviour in practice and contribute empirical evidence to support the advancement of risk-based integrated management systems in aviation.

The airline industry has long faced high financial distress and frequent bankruptcies, with traditional bankruptcy prediction models struggling to provide timely and industry-specific early warning signals. Existing financial models, such as the Altman Z-score and its adaptations, have been widely applied but often fail to capture the unique financial structures and risk factors of airlines. This study introduces a novel two-dimensional financial distress indicator explicitly designed for the airline industry.The proposed model hypothesis-tests and visualizes an airline’s bankruptcy risk using two key financial parameters: the operational ratio (OPR)—calculated as operating expenses divided by operating revenues—and the equity-to-debt ratio (E/D). These metrics are plotted on a two-dimensional graph to illustrate the financial position of airlines over time. To quantify bankruptcy risk, the model integrates the Pilarski bankruptcy score, a logit-based probability model tailored to the airline sector.A dataset of 52 airlines covering the period 2015–2019 is analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the model. The results highlight distinct financial patterns: airlines with lower operational ratios and higher equity-to-debt ratios tend to exhibit greater financial stability, whereas highly leveraged carriers with poor operational efficiency show a significantly higher probability of bankruptcy. The model successfully differentiates between financially robust and distressed airlines, demonstrating a clear visual representation of financial trajectories.Comparative analysis across U.S. and European airlines reveals key industry trends. U.S. low-cost carriers (LCCs) tend to maintain stronger financial positions, while European carriers display a wider variation in financial health. Airlines such as Delta and British Airways emerge as strong performers, whereas carriers with excessive leverage, such as American Airlines, show elevated financial risk for the period studied.Unlike traditional bankruptcy models, which often provide only static, one-year-ahead reliable predictions, this approach allows for dynamic time-path analysis. By tracking an airline’s financial evolution, managers can take proactive corrective actions to improve financial performance. This model also facilitates competitive benchmarking, enabling industry stakeholders to assess an airline’s position relative to its peers.Overall, the proposed two-dimensional financial distress indicator provides a practical, visual, and industry-specific tool for assessing airline financial health. It enhances traditional bankruptcy models by incorporating a clear temporal dimension, allowing for improved decision-making and risk management by the airlines and bankers.

Although the discussions on the sustainability of transport and logistics have been a focus of research in recent years, the impacts of the choice of cooling systems within cold chains have not received the same attention. This paper assesses the environmental and social implications of cold-chain vaccine distribution in the last mile, in terms of CO2 emissions from cooling systems and transport, as well as the external costs of transport. The last-mile vaccine distribution is modelled using a strategic approach to perform multi-scenario analyses. An application within the Flemish immunisation programme in Belgium compares the performance of active (ACS) and passive (PCS) cooling systems during last-mile vaccine distribution. The CO2 emissions results indicate that PCS are the most efficient for multi-stop distribution, while ACS emissions rise sharply with more stops along the route. An illustrative example explores the potential environmental benefits of using cargo bikes and PCS for deliveries in the densest regions. Regarding social impacts, the urban distribution of vaccines presents the highest effects on the external costs categories of accidents, air pollution, and congestion. The findings are relevant to cold-chain planning for logistics operators, as the efficient implementation of cooling systems can enhance all dimensions of sustainability.

Freighter aircraft play a critical role in shaping the spatial organisation of global air cargo flows, yet existing research offers limited insight into their network structure and temporal behaviour. Prior studies rely heavily on annual snapshots, regional analyses, or integrator-focused data, leaving the dynamics of general cargo carriers largely unexplored. This paper addresses these gaps by constructing the Worldwide Freighter Network (WFN), a unique global dataset covering 327 consecutive weeks (2018-2024) and including both scheduled and charter operations for 24 major freighter airlines. Using a temporally granular network framework, we examine how freighter connectivity patterns persist, reconfigure, and concentrate across space over time. We analyse the evolution of freighter networks at both global and airline levels, providing the first temporally granular, airline-specific analysis of global freighter network dynamics. The results reveal a persistent shift toward greater spatial concentration and gateway dominance after the COVID-19 shock, indicating a structural reorganisation of the global air cargo system rather than a temporary disruption. Beyond this system-wide transition, airline-level analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity in network design, routing logic, and temporal stability, underscoring that global connectivity patterns obscure diverse carrier-specific strategies. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of spatio-temporal resolution for interpreting the spatial structure, resilience, and evolution of global freight transport networks as well as for individual airlines.

This paper presents a constrained calibration framework that reconstructs itinerary-level air cargo flows by disaggregating Origin-Destination (OD) demand across feasible road-air routing options under behavioral and operational assumptions. The model integrates observed leg-level payloads with detailed supply attributes, such as airline network structure, flight schedules, aircraft capacities, and first- and last-mile road-feeder services, to capture hub roles, carrier strategies, transshipment constraints, and catchment area effects. For each OD pair, we generate choice sets of feasible itineraries subject to transfer rules, hub sequencing, airport geography, and journey-time bounds. Itinerary attractiveness is determined by a constant-elasticity term that combines generalized time and schedule depth, and flows are assigned using an attractiveness-based allocation, while ensuring routing feasibility and capacity limits are enforced. Calibration is posed as a scalarized dual-objective non-linear optimization that balances accuracy in observed leg loads (via absolute deviation penalties) against over-allocation of capacity (via hinge penalties), yielding capacity-consistent reconstructions at the network scale. Applied to a large real-world schedule and capacity snapshot, the framework reproduces realistic leg loads and itinerary patterns, delivering interpretable insights, including load factors, hub throughput, transit-time distributions, indirect routing, catchment areas, and network imbalances. In practice, the model functions as a demand-to-itinerary disaggregation layer that (i) can feed downstream optimization, emissions inventories, and policy analysis, or (ii) can be embedded within a joint network-design loop in which capacity, timing, and disaggregation co-evolve. Validation against publicly available leg-level data and robustness analyses support the approach. In the absence of itinerary-level ground truth, results are interpreted as model-implied, feasibility-consistent reconstructions for decision support and scenario testing (e.g., capacity shocks or schedule changes).

This study provides a systematic review of the strategic evolution of air freight integrators and develops a structured research agenda. Using the PRISMA 2020 framework, we synthesise 63 peer-reviewed studies to analyse how integrators formulate and adapt their strategies across three interrelated pillars: network structure, cost structure, and service differentiation. The review makes two main contributions. First, it establishes a unified operational definition of air freight integrators as time-definite, end-to-end logistics providers that combine air and ground transport under a single contractual and operational framework, exercising vertical integration through control of critical assets, capacity, and information systems. Second, it offers a cross-regional synthesis that explicitly compares Western incumbents (FedEx, UPS, DHL) with emerging Asian integrators (notably SF Express and YTO Express), moving beyond firm-specific or region-isolated analyses. The findings show that Western incumbents predominantly rely on highly centralised hub-and-spoke networks, while Asian integrators operate more hybrid and bidirectional configurations aligned with dense e-commerce demand. Across cost studies, economies of density are robust, while scale effects depend on network maturity, methodological choice, and business model configuration, helping reconcile contradictory results in earlier research. Evidence on service differentiation is more fragmented but indicates convergence in strategic logic, with both incumbent and emerging integrators shifting toward higher-value, specialised services while adapting offerings to regional market conditions. Overall, the review shows that integrators cannot be treated as a homogeneous category: strategic outcomes reflect deliberate trade-offs between network design, cost management, and service scope shaped by regional and institutional contexts. The paper concludes by outlining a focused research agenda that prioritises comparative analysis of Asian integrators, dynamic network-cost linkages, and theory-driven studies of service differentiation.

Definitions and statistics for (cross-border) e-commerce remain unsettled, and common proxies, corporate headquarters or website domains, do not track where fulfilment value is created. We propose a logistics-anchored attribution rule that classifies business-to-consumer transactions by the country of the last value-adding node immediately before last-mile injection (storage, pick/pack, labelling, quality control, returns triage). Using a common 2022 firm dataset for Belgium, we compare three approaches: headquarters-based, web-domain-based, and our logistics-anchored rule, while holding market totals, marketplace splits, and coverage constant and triangulating operations through twenty expert interviews.Across methods, Belgium’s e-commerce is predominantly cross-border. The preferred logistics-anchored estimate attributes roughly one quarter of spend to domestic fulfilment and three quarters to cross-border nodes, concentrated in The Netherlands and Germany. Interviews link this pattern to higher labour costs, historically tighter evening/night-work rules, and platform consolidation that places pick/pack capacity just across the border. The results show how method choice alone shifts headline shares and why an attribution tied to fulfilment location provides a more operationally faithful and policy-relevant view than headquarters or domain proxies.The approach is portable: with firm-level revenues, a standardised marketplace treatment (1P, 3P platform-fulfilled, 3P seller-fulfilled), and targeted operational triangulation, other countries can replicate the exercise to better align e-commerce measurement with physical flows and last-mile impacts.

The study of traditional supply chains has evolved to incorporate reverse logistics into closed-loop supply chains in the pursuit of sustainability. The recovery of used materials at the consumer level involves first-mile logistics operations for collection and transport to sorting and recycling centres. In the case of post-consumer materials, multiple collection strategies with distinct challenges may be implemented, alongside the critical role of consumer participation, an aspect that has not been sufficiently modelled. This study proposes an assessment of three collection strategies for post-consumer textiles: collection via outdoor containers, door-to-door collection, and collection through local stores. In some of these strategies, consumer mobilisation to drop off textiles is a key component. Through a case study in Antwerp, Belgium, this research evaluates the costs, emissions, and external costs of transport, as well as the effects of consumer behaviour on modal share and drop-off frequency. The results indicate that collection via dedicated containers is the most economically, environmentally, and socially efficient option in total terms. Door-to-door collection is found to be the most costly and polluting strategy due to its transport intensity. In contrast, collection in local stores yields the best indicators per tonne of reusable textiles. This outcome highlights the strong influence of material quality on the overall performance of collection strategies. As a direction for future research, the analysis of consumer willingness to participate is proposed, in order to rebalance the performance assessment of more convenient strategies.

Vertical strategy - airlines' vertical scope and positioning in the vertical industry structure - is crucial for firm performance. This paper uses a k-Means cluster analysis of 75 airlines - based on data of the year 2019 - to identify four airline vertical strategy types: Concentrators, Dependents, Peripherals, and Control Seekers, materialising around the three dimensions of vertical focus, organisational setup, and market environment. Our work focuses on a yet neglected domain of airline strategy, offering a conceptual framework for the assessment and further analysis of airline vertical strategies. Our typology offers practical implications for airline companies in their relative positioning to evaluate and potentially revise their strategies to improve competitive posture and profitability.

The commercial aviation, maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) industry is undergoing a fundamental architectural shift, as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) systematically dismantle a once-modular industry structure to create and exploit strategic bottlenecks. As OEMs tighten control over critical resources and migrate value across the aviation value chain, independent MRO firms face an existential threat to their market position and viability. This paper develops a novel analytical framework that combines industry-architecture concepts and modularity theory to systematically explain how OEMs establish and exploit strategic bottlenecks. It identifies and analyses three distinct bottleneck strategies OEMs use to reshape the industry structure to their advantage and leverage control over co-specialised assets to deliberately reduce the asset mobility of MRO providers: Controlled Expansion, License Networks, and Exclusive Partnerships. Our analysis demonstrates that the effectiveness of MRO counter-strategies depends fundamentally on their ability to restore this mobility. The contingent set of strategic responses for MRO providers that we introduce includes forming enduring alliances with competitors, multi-platform OEMs, and downstream customers, as well as actively influencing the regulatory and contractual frameworks governing value creation. This study provides an essential framework for MRO executives navigating competitive threats by presenting MRO strategic responses for counteracting OEM dominance. It also offers a new theoretical lens for analysing value migration in highly regulated, technology-intensive industries, and, specifically, the under-researched MRO sector, thus contributing to the aviation literature and the literature on strategic bottlenecks.

Building on an integrated historical and conceptual overview of scholarly and industry sources, this paper examines the evolution and transformation of e-commerce. It traces the development of e-commerce from its emergence in the mid-1990s to its current role as a global trade and logistics driver. By defining the concept of e-commerce and exploring significant milestones in its development, including the dot-com bubble and its aftermath, this analysis offers insights into the key milestones that have shaped the e-commerce landscape. It also discusses the growing connection between air cargo and (cross-border) e-commerce, highlighting how the demand for fast and reliable international deliveries has reshaped logistics networks, cargo operations, and aviation strategies. It furthermore explores the evolving role of crucial aviation stakeholders, including freight forwarders, airports, integrators, air carriers, and e-commerce marketplaces as they adapt to the rapid growth of e-commerce-driven air freight. The paper makes three key contributions. First, this historical analysis contextualises the evolution of e-commerce, offering a structured understanding of its most significant milestones. Second, it examines the increasing interdependence between aviation and e-commerce, focusing on industry stakeholders' broad trends and strategic responses. Third, it identifies the most pressing gaps in current research discovered during the analysis and articulates a forward-looking agenda to guide scholars seeking to better understand the sector’s growing complexity from economic and logistics perspectives. As cross-border e-commerce expands, this study offers a foundation for further research on how emerging e-commerce milestones, trends, and models affect global trade, logistics, and aviation.

The rise of e-commerce has increased the demand for B2C transport, posing challenges for urban distribution and its upstream supply networks. Multiple sustainable transport strategies have been proposed to mitigate the effects of freight movement. However, sustainable transport strategies should address the economic, environmental, and social aspects equally. This study aims to evaluate a sustainable distribution strategy based on collaborative network design, integrating last-mile strategic modelling using the continuous multi-scale approach (CMA) with network design models. In the case study on parcel deliveries in Belgium, the collaborative network design strategy minimizes operational and external costs of transport, addressing economic, social and environmental aspects. The results show that, in a scenario where two shaded hubs are implemented, operational and external transport costs can be reduced by up to 20% compared to the current situation where all carriers operate individually. Similarly, carbon emissions are reduced by 25% in the same scenario.

This study analyses and compares the economic impact of Belgium's five commercial airports on their region and country. The airports represent different types, including Belgium's main airport, Brussels Airport and four regional airports: a low-cost regional airport (Brussels South Charleroi Airport), a specialised cargo regional airport (Lie`ge Airport), and two small regional airports (Antwerp Airport and Ostend-Bruges Airport). The economic impact is measured through input-output analysis, which assesses added value and employment on a direct, indirect, and induced level. To improve accuracy, we employ a bottom-up approach that links company-level employment and added value data to the input-output framework via NACE classifications. Additionally, a Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis is introduced to strengthen the robustness of our findings. Our results demonstrate significant differences in the airports' economic contributions based on airport size and operational focus, with Lie`ge Airport's cargo specialisation generating a particularly strong regional impact. These findings lead to a broader discussion on airport subsidies based on the economic impact. Beyond the Belgian context, our bottom-up approach provides a replicable framework for more precise airport impact assessments.

Accounting for 50 % of European airports and 30 % of European traffic, regional airports are vital to the aviation sector. However, their diverse characteristics and operational challenges complicate the development of effective business and management strategies. Given the increasing financial and environmental pressures on regional airports, the aim of this paper is to understand the differences between well-performing and underperforming types of regional airports in order to effectively tailor regional airport business and management strategies. This study applies latent profile cluster analysis to categorise regional airports in Western Europe based on operational characteristics, financial performance, environmental initiatives, and external factors such as geographical context, competitive dynamics, and ownership structure. The analysis identified four distinct categories, including (1) leading regional airports that serve over five million passengers and excel in financial performance, diversified airline partnerships, and sustainability commitment; (2) small regional airports that handle fewer than three million passengers and typically rely on public funding to maintain services. They are further divided into remote/rural and non-remote subcategories; (3) challenged low-cost regional airports, marked by a high share of low-cost carrier movements, that face intense competition and financial instability; and (4) specialised cargo airports that focus primarily on freight operations but face unique operational challenges. The clusters offer practical implications for stakeholders regarding opportunities and challenges faced by different regional airport types. For instance, airport operators can use the clusters as a basis to benchmark performance and tailor strategies concerning, e.g., cost optimisation and airline partnerships. Policymakers could consider targeted public support for remote/rural small regional airports and further investigate the relationship between ownership structures and financial efficiency.

Many airline groups operate multiple Air Operator Certificates (AOCs) under a single brand – a one-brand, multi-AOC (OB-MA) strategy. This study develops and validates a 33-item framework to systematically capture and compare OB-MA strategies among European airlines across three dimensions: corporate logic, value chain configuration, and assets. Applying the framework reveals that airlines address the tensions inherent in multi-AOC operations by centralising decision-making, standardising procedures, and offering unified customer experiences. Yet, the specific design of OB-MA strategies varies according to the circumstances of each airline group, including factors such as corporate heritage, the acquisition of existing AOCs, national regulatory environments, and strategic objectives at the time of establishment. The findings show that OB-MA strategies can enhance regulatory flexibility and competitiveness but also create integration and governance challenges. The study conceptualises OB-MA as a distinct airline strategy and provides a practical toolkit for scholars and practitioners to analyse and refine such configurations.

Airlines have implemented various management systems to avoid different risks but without considering interoperability or integration. This results in a lack of a holistic view and a counterproductive and isolated approach to managing different risks. Therefore, this article proposes a newly designed model to have an integrated system for airlines to ensure interoperability and demonstrate the added value of such a model. The model is based on a survey outcome which confirmed the need for interoperability amongst different management systems. The developed model creates a language for key processes in different management systems, enabling different management systems to create interoperability. The language consists of 3 components used by the different systems. Adding a process to integrate all the different systems provides a holistic view of how each management system works together by providing focus points for the different risks airlines face. Together with the concept of the IMS cube, a new practical model is developed and provides new insights into the different management systems, which remain undetected when looking at management systems individually. It is concluded that a holistic risk profile assists airlines in making decisions which impact multiple management systems rather than individual management systems.

This paper aims to identify gaps in the literature and present a future research agenda for investigations on regional airports. The research topics appearing from the systematic literature review are linked to the roles that regional airports have held and currently hold. In this way, challenges and research gaps that deserve extra attention are identified. Moreover, the paper deals with one of the most pressing research gaps, the definition of a regional airport. The literature and accompanying industry review reveal a diverse use of the term regional airport, and ACI Europe (2017) and the European Parliament (2021) even indicate that there is currently no definition for a regional airport in Europe. To address future research and challenges of regional airports in a more unified and structured manner, a proposal is made to capture the term ’regional airport’ based on objective criteria. With the dual outcome of possibilities for future research and a proposal for a common use of a definition of regional airports, we aim at a more coordinated and impactful progress in research concerning regional airports.