Comparative analysis of the two aviation research papers

The below paper is the critical analysis of research methods used in two papers, first is Airport route development: A survey of current practice by Halpern & Graham (2015) and second is Air route suspension: The role of stakeholder engagement and aviation and non-aviation factors by Lohmann & Vianna (2016). Although, both the studies are focused on evaluating operations of airport industry but adopted different research methods for the purpose of collecting information and drawing valid findings.

COVER SHEET
Course Code : 2 5 2 7 N S C
Course Name : Aviation Research Methods
Due Date :
Assessment Item
Number
: Written Assignment 2: Critical Analysis
Campus and Enrolment :
Course Lecturer :
Course Convener :
Word Count : 1564
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Grading
5 4 3 2 1 Assigned
grade
Total
available Weighting %
CRITERIA
1  5 /5 x 50 50
2  5 /5 x 20 20
3  5 /5 x 20 20
4  5 /5 x 10 10
TOTAL 100

Comparative analysis of the two aviation research papers
The below paper is the critical analysis of research methods used in two papers, first is
Airport route development: A survey of current practice by Halpern & Graham (2015) and
second is Air route suspension: The role of stakeholder engagement and aviation and non-
aviation factors by Lohmann & Vianna (2016). Although, both the studies are focused on
evaluating operations of airport industry but adopted different research methods for the purpose
of collecting information and drawing valid findings. Here, the purpose of below essay is to
compare and contrast research methods adopted in these studies and their contribution in existing
literature on the subject under consideration. Moreover, key limitations of these studies are
evaluated to determine potential research area for further scholars. At last the conclusion will
summarize main strengths and weaknesses of the methods adopted by the researchers.
According to Halpern & Graham (2015), airlines put their marketing efforts in route
development process for the purpose of air services and in some cases tourism flows
development. But in the airport sector, the route development concept has received less attention
of researchers. The authors attempted to fill the gap by determining the influence of marketing
efforts of airlines on its route development. For the purpose, Halpern & Graham (2015) adopted
primary data collection methodology based on online survey comprising close-ended questions,
to obtain information from airport staffs at global level. The Questback Ask and Act survey tool
was used to conduct online survey. The survey questionnaire comprise of 26 closed questions
categorized into three main sections. The first section dealt with the objectives of route
development; the second section has questions related with the route development process; and
the third section intended to measure the importance of route development. The survey was
aimed to collect quantitative data on the preferences of passengers about aircraft, schedules and
fares. Researchers used Flighglobal Pro as a sampling frame for selecting a sample from the
overall population of the airports worldwide. The tool is convenient source of the information
about the aviation industry. Total 934 airports were targeted to carry out the survey and out of
which responses received from 124 airports only.
For the purpose of data analysis, inferential statistical tools were utilized, including
Pearson’s Chi-square, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and t-test to draw results in

quantitative format from the collected information. Ten ways have been identified by different
airports that they use for route development and its scale reliability has been tested using
Cronbach's Alpha. The interpretivism philosophy was used in this study, as the researcher tried
to follow an empathetic stance by entering the social world and understand the subject from the
view point of different airports employees. The philosophy allowed researchers to develop
theory from the responses received through survey. But Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill (2009)
criticized that primary information obtained in interpretivist researches cannot be generalized, as
data to a great extent is affected by respondents’ personal values and viewpoint. Thus, data
representativeness and reliability to certain extent is undermined.
Moreover, based on interpretivism philosophy, the study does not initiate on theory,
rather by referencing the existing commercial climate of global airports. However, some
limitations were attached with this study, first is that survey was focused on the airports in North
America and Europe, where more advance route development practices are followed than other
regions, which add in bias. Also, a wide sample was targeted to collect primary data for this
study but very low rate of responses, i.e. 13% were received through the survey. It provides a
base to carry out further studies into the topic. The scholars in future can use both qualitative and
quantitative approach to get detail insights about the activities of route development. Besides
this, the focus of this study was on the operator’s activities of airport but many airline
stakeholders are likely to have interest in the route development activities, thus, investigating
their views would provide more information in the area. Nevertheless, this research finding well
contributes to fill the literature gap on the airports role in route development and suggesting
important area to research the new route development process of airports, i.e. evaluating factors
that lead to suspensions of route. This means, the findings are specifically relevant for less
advanced airports in route develop practices and seeking to debate tourism and route
development strategies with stakeholders.
The second article examines the effect of aviation and non-aviation factors on the
decisions to suspend air routes. For this purpose, Lohmann & Vianna (2016) analyses the
negotiation process and business relationships among DMOs (destination management
organizations), airlines and airports of Australian domestic routes. Pragmatism research
philosophy was used in the study as it uses a combination of methods to find answers to the

research question (Creswell & Clark, 2017). Researchers have used both secondary and primary
data collection to reach the objective of the study. Various newspapers were referred to as
secondary source for finding air route suspension instances in a particular time period along with
the reasons.
This study also used semi-structured interviews for collecting primary data. The
information as obtained from the secondary sources functioned as background for conducting
interviews. The media sources provided real cases of air route suspension in Australia and
interviewees were asked to elaborate on those cases. The interviewees were among the
significant stakeholders of the industry who might provide key information regarding the air
transport routes’ suspension. Though a set of initial questions were proposed, the semi-structured
interview was conducted to obtain insightful information regarding current market practices and
reasons for suspension of air routes. The participants were consists of directors and mangers of
airports, airlines and DMOs who have experienced route suspension instances. The websites of
these organizations and LinkedIn were used to get contact details and interviews were conducted
through e-mail. Out of 20 participants, only 13 responded as 3 of them were not available and 4
did not responded. NVivo software was used to analyze interview transcripts which categorized
the information in different clusters according to the identified themes. The obtainable
information was coded in accordance with the themes. Researchers analyzed these themes
according to the research objectives.
It has been observed that Airlines were shy to participate in the study. The competitive
nature of aviation business may be the reason of low contributions from airlines as any
explanations regarding route suspension is related to its incompetency or operational failure.
This is the major limitation of the study as only one airline manager responded. Another
limitation of the study was that researchers focused on only domestic aviation sector of
Australia. This limits the number of case instances of route suspension. It is expected that a
wider span of target area would bring more insightful results about reasons of route suspensions.
Researchers highlighted another limitation of the study that it focused only on the scheduled
routes while route suspension had occurred on other forms of air transport also like cargo and
charter services. However, the research provides a good foundation for future research for

assessing factors of air transport route suspension and to develop strategic routes in future to
avoid unplanned delays.
Air route development is among the important aviation research subjects. In a recent
research paper, Spasojevic, Lohmann, & Scott (2017) argued that air route development is a
complex process which requires input from many key stakeholders. The two selected articles
although based on aviation route development; the study targets different objectives. The first
article has been published in a tourism journal and considers air route development as a cause of
tourism flows. While the second article which has been published in an Air Transport
Management journal try to assess the role of different stakeholders in the process of suspension
of routes while analyzing key factors of the suspension. Moreover, the two studies have used
different research philosophy. The research philosophy of the first article was interpretivism
whereas the second study used pragmatism research philosophy.
The research design of the two studies is also different as the first study was based on
primary data collection while the second study used both secondary and primary data analyses to
reach research objectives. The sampling technique was similar in both studies for the distribution
of survey questionnaires. Convenience sampling was used by both studies. The first study
referred to Flighglobal Pro as a sampling frame whereas, the second study used selected media
for relevant cases. Furthermore, the target population was more or less similar as the first study
was targeted at airports’ management while the second study was targeted at airlines and DMOs
also other than airport management. The data analysis part of both studies was entirely different
because of the type of collected data. The first study collected quantitative data and statistical
tools were used to analyze and reach conclusion. Whereas, the second study collected qualitative
data for which framework analysis tools like coding and thematic framework were used.
Talking about limitations, these studies were prone to different limitations. Biasness in
airport selection and low response rates were identified as the major limitations of the first study
which are related to the data collection techniques. Whereas, the second article cited two major
limitations; one is the limited availability of case examples and the second is lack of willingness
to participate by airlines. Overall, both studies were successful in filling the literature gap in their
respective research subjects of aviation route development.

References
Creswell, J. W., & Clark, V. L. P. (2017). Designing and conducting mixed methods research.
Sage publications.
Halpern, N., & Graham, A. (2015). Airport route development: A survey of current
practice. Tourism Management, 46, 213-221.
Lohmann, G., & Vianna, C. (2016). Air route suspension: The role of stakeholder engagement
and aviation and non-aviation factors. Journal of Air Transport Management, 53, 199-
210.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research methods for business students.
Essex. Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Spasojevic, B., Lohmann, G., & Scott, N. (2017). We hear voices: Airline, airport and tourism
stakeholders on the role of governance and leadership in air route development. CAUTHE
2017: Time For Big Ideas? Re-thinking The Field For Tomorrow, 532.