2 The term Aeromobilities will be elaborate in Chapter: 3 Aeromobilities.
Figure 1: This illustrates the development in total passengers and transfer passengers in Copenhagen Airport. Since 2000 Copenhagen Airport has had a declining trend in transfer passengers from 8.8m in 2000 to 5.7m in 2017 (-35%), and transfer share decrease from 47%
in 2000 to 19% in 2017. Note: Transfer passengers and the associated transfer share from 2000-2008 are based on estimates (CPH data).
This development of Copenhagen Airport as a hub airport is remarkable compared to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport3 which had the same number of passengers in the late 80’s and now is more than twice as big in number of passengers, which can be seen below.
3 The official name for the largest airport in Amsterdam is Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. In this thesis, I will use the name Schiphol or Schiphol Airport.
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30%
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50%
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Passengers at Copenhagen Airport
(Passengers in millions, transfer share in %)
Total passengers Transfer passengers O&D passengers Transfer share
Figure 2: Comparisonof total number of passengers in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and Copenhagen Airport. In early 80s the two airports had approximately the same size, while Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in 2016 2.2x larger in terms of number of passengers. (CPH
data, Royal Schiphol Group, 2018).
The importance of hub airports.
Aviation is based on controversies, on one hand the aviation helps to facilitate domestic, regional and global coherence and supports the distribution channels of good and services including tourism along less tangles elements such as culture and knowledge. In Denmark the economic effects of the aviation sector is estimated to be up to DKK 100bn (Copenhagen Economics, 2015, p. 7). On the other hand, aviation is also linked to externalities as listed above. During the last years there has been an increasingly debate about the emission from aircrafts and the potential effect on the global warming. This has e.g. in Sweden led to environmental imposed regulations from April 2018 on aircrafts in form of additional taxation on airline tickets departing from Sweden, with the purpose to reduce the environmental impact from aircrafts, consequently the future prognosis for traffic development in Swedish airports have been reduced4. This illustrates one of the controversies associated with aviation: The benefits of the growth versus externalities.
4 See: https://www.transportstyrelsen.se/sv/Press/Pressmeddelanden/flygskatten-sanker-prognosen-for-flygresor/
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Schiphol Airport vs. Copenhagen Airport
(1980 ‐ 2018: Passengers in millons)
Schiphol Airport Copenhagen Airport
Limited research on aviation in Denmark.
Across Europe, there are some traditions of conducting aviation research, but for some unknown reason, the research attention towards aviation in Denmark is very limited.
Based on a review of research papers presented at the largest Danish Transport Conference Traffic Days, there have from 2005 to 2017 only been presented 11 research projects focusing on different dimensions of aviation in contrast the total nearly 1.000 presentation of different aspects of transport research on e.g. road or rail.
(see section: 2.4 Field of Aviation and Airport Research). The last couples of years, though, there have been an increasingly political attention towards aviation in Denmark in relation to development of the first Danish governmental aviation strategy published in 2017. This strategy was to some extent based on different consultancy reports arguing for different challenges within the Danish aviation sector. Disregard of this, I will still argue that research within aviation in Denmark is very limited.
Airports - between market and politic
Due to liberalization of the aviation market in the 1990s and the increased corporatization of major airports, the airports have changed its role within the society.
Consequently, airports are no longer passive infrastructure providers, but airports are now an active part in developing connectivities by engaging with airliners and other stakeholders (see also Chapter 3 Aeromobilities). Copenhagen Airport is such an example, but this process takes place all over Europe. Historically, major airports have been financially regulated to varying degrees due to the nature of its natural geographically monopoly. As I will argue for in Chapter 3 Aeromobilities, an airport cannot be understood as an isolated entity, but should be understood as an integrated part of society. However, it seems that the historically political attention towards aviation in Denmark have been vague due to other transport focal areas. Even though there have been established various committees addressing aviation challenges, the low political attention has not fostered an increased cooperation between the stakeholders including authorities where development of aviation is understood from a wider societal strategical point of view – and not only as a regulated industry. This has been one of the drivers for me to explore and understand airport developments between market and governmental politics, through governance “thinking”. Such approach that bridges airports and the state in generating a platform where different viewpoints can interact and be coordinated in order to develop a common understanding of direction for further development of aviation could seem more beneficial to development of connectivities in the Danish society. This forms the foundation for the empirical and theoretical work in the thesis.
The structure of the thesis
Instead of conducting a research based on quantitative measures, I will, as stated, in this thesis, have a qualitative approach to understand the development of the production of aeromobilities. After this brief presentation of my research questions
and the context that frames my wondering, I will shortly present an overview of each of the chapters in the thesis:
Chapter 2: What is a Hub Airport? Firstly, I will elaborate on different perspectives on hub airports, and how these have developed in line with structural changed in the aviation industry. Further, I will make an overview of conventional aviation research in order to frame the exiting research on aviation.
Chapter 3: Aeromobilities. Then I will layout out the foundation for an aeromobilities approach based on the new mobilities paradigm by Urry and Sheller to understand the production of hub airports. I will argue that hub airports cannot be considered as pure flow machines, but needs to be understood as a relational and dynamic process with and within society based on nexus of regional, national and global controversies.
Additional, I will also argue that hub airports no longer just provide capacity, but rather play an active role in the production of aeromobilities by actively engaging the development of new connectivities.
Chapter 4: Theory of Science. Hereafter, I will argue that aeromobilities need to be