Uneven patterns in airport seat capacity distribution: a review

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on the uneven patterns of airport seat capacity. Seat capacity distribution studies are useful to show air travel possibilities and whether economic development is concentrated in some particular regions. During the last decades, seat capacity patterns have been reshaped by an increasing process of deregulation of the air traffic market and liberalization of the former flagship carriers. Overall, literature agrees that intra-continental seat capacity has tended to deconcentrate, meaning that seats are more equally spread along the airport population, while inter-continental seat capacity, the most valuable for the exchange of face-to-face information and global supply chains, has tended to concentrate in fewer airports. Hence, in quantitative terms inequality has decreased, although in qualitative terms it has increased.