Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012) 2734

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Journal of Transport Geography

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Measuring the size of an airports catchment area

Rogier Lieshout
SEO Economic Research, Roetersstraat 29, 1018WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Keywords:
Catchment area
Airport choice modeling
Airport market share
Airport competition

a b s t r a c t
Although much empirical research exists on the factors that drive passenger airport choice, not much is
known about the related topic of airport catchment area size. This paper presents a novel methodology to
assess the size of airport catchment areas and the airports market shares therein using a MNL passenger
choice model. The methodology is applied to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. The results show that the size
of its catchment area differs considerably by destination. Schiphols market share within its catchment
area declined between 2005 and 2011 due to increased competition from airports located to the south
and southeast. Airports may use the presented methodology to evaluate the spatial nature of their catchment areas to understand passenger airport choice and the competitive forces in their respective hinterland regions. In addition, the methodology shows airports the effects of changes to service level offerings
(in terms of frequencies and fares) on their catchment area and the market shares therein. Furthermore,
the methodology may be of use to policymakers to estimate the competitive position of airports in the
OD-markets served and to assess the effects of infrastructure investments on catchment area size and airport market shares.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
An airports catchment area is the area surrounding the airport
from which it attracts its passengers. The size of the catchment
area as well as the airports market share within the catchment
area depends on the driving factors behind passenger airport
choice, such as accessibility and service level offered by the airport
in terms of fares and frequencies vis--vis surrounding airports.
With the development of more and more regional airports, passengers have a wider choice of airports than ever before. This
means that airport catchment areas increasingly overlap. As a result airports need to share the potential market in their catchment
area with an increasing number of other airports. This means that
catchment areas are not static, but evolve over time depending on
relative changes in the service offerings of airports.
Catchment areas are usually depicted in a rather simplistic
manner, i.e. by drawing concentric circles around airports. The radii of these circles are often based on an arbitrary assumption of a
maximum allowable access time of around 2 h (Marcucci and Gatta, 2011). Although this simple approach is straightforward and
relatively easy to apply and interpret, it has some important drawbacks: First of all, it results in a static image of an airports potential
market. Changes in the factors that drive airport passenger choice
will not have any effect on catchment area size as these factors are
not taken into account. Second, market shares within the catch Tel.: +31 20 525 1672; fax: +31 20 525 1686.
E-mail address: r.lieshout@seo.nl
0966-6923/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2012.07.004

ment area remain unclear. This means that it ignores the fact that
airport market shares tend to decrease when one moves further
away from the airport. Third, the catchment area is assumed to
be similar for all destinations offered from the airport, which
seems unrealistic. An airport offering a relatively high service level
to a certain destination compared to surrounding airports, might
well attract passengers from hinterland regions over 2 h away.
For instance passengers in remote regions with a limited number
of departure airports to choose from are often forced to travel well
over 2 h to reach a departure airport. Such an airport might still
have a large market share in those far-away regions as competition
from other airports is limited or non-existent. On the other hand,
airports offering a low service level compared to competing airports will probably attract few people from distant regions and a
radius of 2 h might be too large.
Airports are well-served to evaluate the spatial nature of their
catchment areas to understand passenger airport choice and the
competitive forces in their respective hinterland regions (Fuellhart,
2007). This allows them to identify the regions where market share
is relatively low and the reasons behind it. In 2002, Humphreys
and Francis showed that catchment area size is a signicant determinant of an airports attractiveness to airlines. Airports may
therefore also use information on their catchment area in marketing efforts towards airlines. Catchment area analysis is also of
interest to policymakers as they use projected levels of passenger
demand in the decision-making process.
In this paper a novel methodology is presented to measure the
size of airport catchment areas as well as the airports market

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R. Lieshout / Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012) 2734

shares therein. It allows one to show how catchment areas differ

by destination and how catchment areas have evolved over time.
In addition the implications of a variety of supply scenarios on airport market shares and catchment areas can be shown.
In the next section an overview is given of the relevant literature. In Section 3 the catchment area methodology is presented.
This methodology is applied for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in
Section 4. It is shown how the airports catchment area and its
market shares therein differ between destinations. Also it is shown
how the catchment area of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has
evolved since 2005. Section 5 concludes.

2. Literature review
Catchment area analysis is a largely ignored topic in existing literature. This has to do with the lack of useful data on catchment
areas, i.e. the place of residence/stay of airport users. Such empirical evidence on catchment areas is only available through passenger enquiries that do not exist on a large scale (Dobruszkes et al.,
2011). In this paper a methodology is presented which is not
dependent upon such data.
The size of an airports catchment area is determined by the
choices passengers in the airports hinterland make. Do they use
the airport at hand or do they prefer another airport? To understand how catchment areas are shaped and evolve over time, one
therefore needs to understand the choices passengers make in
choosing an airport. Over the years many studies have been published on airport choice. Most of these used some form of the logit
model (Kroes et al., 2005) to determine passenger airport choice.
Few of the studies however expressed the implications of airport
choice in the spatial dimension. An exception is the study by Fuellhart (2007) which provides a spatial analysis of the market of Harrisburg International Airport (MDT). This specic market showed a
strong distance decay, especially in those areas where the airport
faces competition from other airports.
The studies on airport choice do provide useful insights into the
driving factors behind airport choice. Most studies show that airport choice is largely determined by access time, ight frequency
and/or airfares (Ashford and Bencheman, 1987; Bradley, 1998;
Brooke et al., 1994; Cohas et al., 1995; Augustinus and Demakopoulos, 1978; Furuichi and Koppelman, 1994; Harvey, 1986, 1987;
Hess and Polak, 2005, 2006; Humphreys and Francis, 2002; Ishii
et al., 2009; Jiang-Tao, 2008; Lian and Rnnevik, 2011; Loo et al.,
2005; Loo, 2008; Mason, 2000; Ndoh et al., 1990; Ozaka and Ashford, 1989; Pels et al., 2001, 2003; Skinner, 1976; Thompson and
Caves, 1993; Windle and Dresner, 2002; Zhang and Xie, 2005).
The relative importance of the three factors however varies between the studies. This is because the studies focus on (1) different
dimensions (airport choice in isolation or together with airline,
route, purpose and access mode), (2) survey type (revealed or stated preference or both), (3) different geographical areas and (4)
model specication (from from standard MNL to more advanced
mixed logit models) (Marcucci and Gatta, 2011).
Business travellers appeared more sensitive to access time and
frequency, whereas leisure passengers showed greater sensitivity
towards airfares (Harvey, 1987; Pels et al., 2003; Hess and Polak,
2005; Zhang and Xie, 2005; Loo, 2008; Ashford and Bencheman,
1987; Thompson and Caves, 1993; Bradley, 1998). Due to their
higher values of time, business passengers have a tendency for
shorter access time and higher ight frequencies. Higher frequencies limit schedule delay, the time difference between the desired
departure time and the next best available departure time. Also
higher frequencies contribute to reliability. When one misses a
ight a high frequency allows the passenger to take the next ight
in a relatively short time interval. Business travellers are not com-

pletely insensitive to airfares however. Franke (2004), Mason

(2000) and Pantazis and Liefner (2006) showed that business travellers are, to some extent, willing to accept longer travel distances
to reduce travel costs.
Leisure travellers have a lower value of time, explaining why access time and ight frequencies are less important to them. And
because they use personal funds to purchase a ticket, the ticket
price has a larger inuence on airport choice. Low cost carriers attract passengers from a wider geographical region than traditional
carriers do, because the lower fares offered outweigh the cost of
the extra access distance (Dresner et al., 1996; Gillen and Lall,
2004; Greifenstein and Wei, 2003). This means that airports can
widen their catchment areas by attracting low cost carriers (Lian
and Rnnevik, 2011; Pantazis and Liefner, 2006).
3. Methodology
3.1. Concept
In this section the methodology is presented to estimate the
size of an airports catchment area and its market shares therein.
The methodology is based upon an airport choice model, which includes the driving factors behind airport choice: access time, frequency level and airfares. Travellers to some extent trade these
factors off against each other. Literature showed that passengers
are willing to accept longer travel times to take advantage of higher quality airline products (either in terms of higher frequencies or
lower costs). This effect appeared stronger for leisure passengers
than for business passengers due to differences in time valuation.
When an airport offers a relatively high service level (in terms
of high frequencies and/or low airfares) to a certain destination
vis-a-vis competing airports in the hinterland, it will obtain a relatively large market share in the hinterland for that specic destination. The airport will especially capture a large share of the
market in the hinterland regions surrounding the airport. But it
will also be able to attract passengers from regions located further
away from the airport as the high quality product offered compensates for increased access time. When an airports service level to a
certain destination is worse than that of competing airports in the
hinterland, the opposite is true: the airports market share in the
hinterland will be lower and its catchment areas will be smaller.
Airport market shares and catchment area size therefore differ by
destination and travel motive.
Following from the above, airports may increase their market
share in the hinterland and the size of their catchment area by
increasing their service level. Another way to stimulate market
share and increase catchment area size, is to invest in infrastructure to limit access times. When access times to an airport decrease, the airport will become more attractive to passengers in
the hinterland. Airports however do not have direct control over
infrastructure investments.
The methodology rst estimates airport market shares for each
combination of hinterland region and destination, separately for
both travel motives. For hinterland regions the European NUTS-3
regions are used. Destinations can either be single airports or multi
airport regions. An airports catchment area size is dened as the
combination of hinterland regions in which the airport has a market share of over 1%. As market shares may differ between travel
motives, catchment area sizes are also allowed to differ between
motives.
3.2. Model
The airport market shares are measured by a MNL model. The
MNL model assumes that the traveller chooses the travel alternative that maximizes total utility (or minimizes total disutility/

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R. Lieshout / Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012) 2734

costs) (Ben-Akiva and Lerman, 1985). This means that rst all travel alternatives available to the passengers must be identied. For
the landside, one should identify all possible access modes, which
generally include: car, train, bus and taxi. Due to lacking data on
public transport frequencies between the hinterland regions and
departure airports, only the car has been included as access mode
for now.
On the airside all direct ights (with their frequencies), offered
by the airport for which the catchment area analysis is made, need
to be identied. In addition all competing ight options from other
airports in the hinterland are to be established. OAG airline schedules are used to provide information on the routes and frequencies
offered directly from each airport. Especially on long-haul ights
however, a signicant number of passengers use indirect ight
alternatives. As opposed to direct connections, indirect connections contain a stop at an intermediate hub airport.1 The indirect
ight options are added by identifying all viable indirect options
using the NetCost model. This model was rst presented by Heemskerk and Veldhuis (2006a,b) and developed by Veldhuis and Lieshout
(2009).
The market share of airport x in the market between hinterland
region r and destination y for passengers with travel motive m is
given by the MNL model:

P
Pr;x;y;m P

h;a e

U r;x;h;y;m;a

U r;x;h;y;m;a
x;h;a e

where Pr,x,y,m is the market share of airport x in the market between

hinterland region r and destination y for passengers with travel motive m and Ur,x,h,y,m,a is the utility of the travel alternative between
hinterland region r, via departure airport x, possibly with a transfer
at hub h to destination airport y with airline/alliance a for passengers with travel motive m.
3.2.1. Utility functions
The utility of a travel alternative represents the attractiveness of
each alternative. The utility functions should therefore contain the
driving factors behind airport choice: airfares, access time and
ight frequency. Other costs included in the utility function used
here are access costs and airside time costs. Costs differ between
leisure and business passengers:
U r;x;h;y;m;a elnfreqr;x;h;y;a aaccess costsr;x;m faresx;h;y;m;a access time costsr;x;m airside time costsx;h;y;m;a
2

where freqr,x,h,y,a is the ight frequency between region r, via departure airport x, possibly via hub airport h to nal destination airport y
offered by airline/alliance a, access costsr,x,m is the out of pocket costs
related to the landside trip between region r and departure airport
x, for passengers with travel motive m, faresx,h,y,m,a is the out of pocket fare costs related to the airside trip between departure airport x,
possibly with a transfer at hub h to nal destination airport y with
airline/alliance a, for passengers with travel motive m, access time
costsr,x,m is the landside time costs related to the trip between region r and departure airport x, for passengers with travel motive
m, airside time costsx,h,y,m,a is the airside time costs related to the trip
between departure airport x, possibly with a transfer at hub h to nal destination airport y with airline/alliance a, for passengers with
travel motive m and am is the parameter indicating the sensitivity to
changes in travel and time costs for passengers with travel motive
m.2
1
A hub airport is an airport at which at least one airline is coordinating its incoming
and outgoing ights in such a way as to optimize transfers between these ights.
2
This parameter was calibrated with available MIDT-data, the best t was obtained
for a = 0.01 for the business segment and a = 0.02 for the leisure segment.

3.2.2. Access costs

As only the car is included as access mode, the access costs are
the costs associated with using an average car to travel between
region r and departure airport x. The costs depend on the distance
between region r and airport x and the number of car passengers
over which the costs are split:

Access costsr;x;m

costs per km  distance kmr;x

car passengersm

where costs per km is the average car costs per kilometre, including
fuel, maintenance, insurance and depreciation,3 distance (km)r,x is
the landside distance in kilometres between hinterland region r
and departure airport x and car passengersm is the average number
of passengers per car, for passengers with travel motive m.4
The access distances between hinterland regions r and departure airports x were obtained from an online route planner using
web scraping technology.
3.2.3. Airfares
Reliable data on airfares is hard to come by. Therefore a fare
model was used whose parameters were obtained by econometric
analysis using MIDT data for Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. The
analysis showed that distance, market concentration, the presence
of a low cost carrier and the circuity and transfer times associated
with indirect travel alternatives all had a signicant effect on
airfares:
(
faresx;h;y;m;a

e4:1650:214NST x;y 0:005NST x;y 0:002NST x;y HHIx;y 0:345HHIx;y 0:034Dlcc0:105Ddirect ; m leisure
2

e4:0640:296NST x;y 0:008NST x;y 0:039NST x;y HHIx;y 0:564HHIx;y 0:364Dlcc0:323Ddirect ; m business
4

where NSTx,y is the nonstop travel time between departure airport x

and nal destination airport y, HHIx,y is the concentration level in
the market between departure airport x and nal destination airport y, Dlcc is the dummy variable for low cost carriers and Ddirect
is the dummy variable for direct ights.
The nonstop travel time is the actual direct travel time, according to airline schedules. For indirect connections, not offered directly, the nonstop travel time is estimated by calculating the
great circle travel distance and assuming an average ight speed,
adjusting for landing and take-off.
The concentration level is used as a proxy for competition. Various concentration indexes or measures have been suggested in the
eld of industrial economics. The most frequently used are the
Concentration Ratio (CR) and the Herndahl-Hirschman Index
(HHI). Other measures, such as the Lorenz Curve, Gini Coefcient,
Inverse Index and Entropy are less frequently employed in industrial economics and competition policy analysis than the CR and
the HHI. A thorough review of these measures is outside the scope
of this chapter. For further information, see Singer (1965).
The HHI was chosen here to measure competition. For air trafc
markets, the HHI is calculated by summing the squared market
shares of competing direct and indirect ights. The HHI is widely
used to measure concentration in economic markets, including
air trafc markets (Reynolds-Feighan, 1998), and it is easily interpretable. However, it also has two important shortcomings. First, it
is sensitive to the incorrect measurement of market shares. Since it
involves squared market shares, any measurement error will also
be squared. A correct measurement of the market shares depends
to a large extent on a correct denition of relevant markets (Lijesen, 2004). A customer willing to travel from Tokyo to Amsterdam
is not interested in the average concentration in the market
3

These costs were estimated to be 0.20 /km on average.

The number of passengers per car was not known for each of the airports included
in the analysis. Therefore an assumption was made that the average number of car
passengers for leisure travel averages 3 and for business travel 1.5.
4

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R. Lieshout / Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012) 2734

between Japan and the Netherlands, but in the concentration in the

city pair market between Tokyo and Amsterdam. We overcome the
rst shortcoming by dening markets as airport pairs. The second
shortcoming of the HHI is its failure to account for close substitutes
(Lijesen, 2004). Usually, market shares of a specic city pair are calculated using frequencies. This implies, however, that direct ights
are treated in the same way as indirect ights. Indirect ights are,
however, of lower quality than direct ights due to the extra travel
time involved. This quality aspect should be taken into account
when calculating the concentration level at a certain city pair.
Therefore, connectivity shares of competing direct and indirect
ights in specic airline markets are used to compute the concentration index instead of frequency shares. The connectivity shares
are based on the connectivity levels (CNU) of each competitor in
a specic airline market:

CNU x;y;a

X
freqx;h;y;a  qx;h;y;a

where CNUx,y,a is the connectivity offered by airline/alliance a between departure airport a and nal destination airport y and qx,h,y,a
is the the quality of the indirect ight frequency.
Connectivity levels are obtained by weighing frequency levels
for quality, using a quality index. This way, the quality aspect is accounted for when calculating the HHI. For details on how to weigh
frequencies for quality, see Veldhuis (1997), Burghouwt and Veldhuis (2006), de Wit et al. (2009) and Burghouwt et al. (2009).
Aggregating the squares of the connectivity shares of each of the
competing airlines (alliances) in a specic market between x and
y results in the HHI of the market.

HHIx;y

X  CNU x;y;a 2
P
a
a CNU x;y;a

3.2.4. Access time costs

The cost associated with travel time is obtained by multiplying
the time spent during the trip with a value of travel time. Access
time costs are therefore represented as follows:

access time costsr;x access timer;x  VoTT m

where access timer,x is the access time between hinterland region r

and departure airport x and VoTTm is the value of travel time for passengers with travel motive m.5
The access time costs between hinterland regions r and departure airports x were obtained from route planning websites together with the collection of access distances.
3.2.5. Airside time costs
Indirect travel alternatives involve extra travel time compared
to direct alternatives. Both because of the circuitous ight and
the transfer at the intermediate hub. Circuity ight time is dened
as the time difference between the total indirect ight time and the
nonstop travel time. The transfer time is dened as the time spent
at an intermediate airport. The transfer time follows from the airline schedules.
The valuation of in-ight travel time is assumed to be identical
to access travel time. Circuity time and transfer time are perceived
with a higher degree of inconvenience than in-ight time. Therefore, circuity time and connecting time are penalized with specic
factors in the model:

The values of travel time for both motives were calibrated using MIDT data. The
best t was obtained with a value of 30 dollars per hour for leisure travelers and
65 dollars per hour for business travelers.

Airside time costsx;h;y;a NST x;y lx;y  qCT

m  CT x;h;y;a
lx;y  qTT
m  TT x;h;y;a  VoTT m

where lx,y is the adjusting penalty factor decreasing with travel

time, qCT
m is the penalty factor on the VoTT for circuity time for passengers with travel motive m,6 qTT
m is the penalty factor on the VoTT
for transfer time for passengers with travel motive m,7 CTx,h,y,a is the
ciruity travel time between departure airport x, via hub airport h to
destination airport y with airline/alliance a, compared to a direct
ight between airports x and y. TTx,h,y,a is the transfer time at intermediate hub airport h offered by airline/alliance a on connections
between departure airport x and destination airport y.
The penalty factors for circuity and transfer time are assumed to
decrease with distance. This means that a larger penalty factor remains for short-haul routes and a smaller one for long-haul routes.
The difference between the penalty factors for short and long-haul
routes is justied by the fact that 1 h of circuity leads to relatively
more inconvenience in the short-haul than in the long-haul. The
same argument holds for connecting time, although the penalty
factor for connecting time is overall slightly higher, as connecting
time is perceived as even more inconvenient than circuity time.
The adjusting penalty factor on circuity and transfer time is as follows (see de Wit et al., 2009):

lx;y 3  0:075  NST x;y

This implies that the penalty factors for circuity and transfer
time are adjusted with a factor of almost 3 for short-haul routes
with a nonstop ight time of say 3 h. The penalty factors for
long-haul routes with a direct ight time of say 12 h are adjusted with a factor little over 2.
With formula (1) airport market shares in the hinterland were
obtained for individual destinations. By weighing these market
shares with the size of each destination in terms of departing passengers, one obtains a weighted market share for airport x in hinterland region r:

Pr;x;m

X
y

paxr;x;y;m
Pr;x;y;m  P
y paxr;x;y;m

10

where Pr,x,m is the weighted average market share of airport x in the

hinterland region r, for passengers with travel motive m and
paxr,x,y,m is the passengers with travel motive m travelling between
hinterland region r via departure airport x to destination y.
Passenger numbers are generally not available at the detailed
level of hinterland regions and nal destinations. A solution would
be to use a gravity model to estimate the number of passengers between each hinterland region and nal destination. Here a simple
gravity model for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is applied to estimate the number of departing passengers between the airport
and each destination:
0:791

paxx;y 2:539  104 

seat capacityx

0:791

 seat capacityy
1:037

distancex;y

11

where paxx,y is the passengers travelling from departure airport x to

destination y, seat capacityx is the total yearly seat capacity offered
from departure airport x, seat capacityy is the total yearly seat capacity offered from destination airport y and distancex,y is the great circle distance in kilometres between departure airport x and
destination y.
The great circle distances between the departure airport x and
destination airport y were calculated using the longitude and lati6
This parameter was calibrated with using MIDT-data, the best t was obtained for
a value of 1.7 for both travel motives.
7
This parameter was calibrated with using MIDT-data, the best t was obtained for
a value of 1.3 for leisure travelers and 1.5 for business travelers.

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R. Lieshout / Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012) 2734

tude of both airports. The yearly seat capacities for all departure
and destination airports were determined using OAG airline schedules. The coefcients were obtained by econometric regression
analysis using MIDT data on passenger numbers and OAG data
on airport seat capacities. The gravity model passenger estimates
for each city-pair now only need to be assigned to the various hinterland regions. Regions close to Schiphol will obtain a higher
share of the gravity estimates. The utility values are used to calculate this share. In addition, regions with a larger population will
have a larger share in the gravity estimates. Therefore the share
also depends on the population share of a region.

4. Results
The methodology presented is applied to measure the catchment area of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and its market shares
therein. This section shows how these differ between destinations
and have they have evolved over time.
For destinations which are offered directly from multiple competing airports, airport catchment areas are generally relatively
small as the markets need to be shared with several competing airports. Airports that serve unique destinations on the other hand do
not need to share these markets with competitors and will attract
most of the market, resulting in large catchment areas. The competing airports that have been included in the analysis are summarised in Table 1.
Fig. 1 shows Schiphols catchment area and market shares
therein for two destinations that differ considerably with respect
to the level of hinterland competition: Malaga (AGP) and Xiamen
(XMN). Although Schiphol offers a rather high quality product to
Malaga, with attractive fares due to the fact that the ights are
operated by low cost carriers, it needs to share the market with a
large number of other airports in the hinterland. To the south, airports such as Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Brussels and Charleroi also offer direct ights to Malaga. And towards the east many German
airports offer direct ights to Malaga as well, with Frankfurt, Niederrhein, and Dsseldorf offering most direct connections. Most of
these connections are also operated by low cost carriers. In addition a large number of indirect connections are available, but these
are relatively unattractive as they involve a rather large travel
time, due to circuity ight time and transfer time. Because of the
high level of competition from other airports in the hinterland,
the market share of Schiphol decreases rapidly when one moves
towards the south or east.
For ights to Xiamen on the other hand, Schiphol hardly faces
any competition from nearby airports. In fact, none of the airports
in Table 1 offer direct ights to Xiamen. Airports such as Paris
Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt Brussels and Dsseldorf do offer indirect connections, either via Schiphol or hubs airports in Asia (Bang-

kok, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and Guangzhou). This means

that the direct ights from Schiphol are relatively attractive even
to those passengers located further away from Schiphol.
Passengers from Belgium for instance trade off a travel alternative with a limited access time and a larger ight time (such as a
departure from Brussels with a transfer at either Schiphol to Beijing) to an alternative with a longer access time but a more limited
ight time (the direct ight offered from Schiphol). The gure
shows that the market share of Schiphol decreases around Brussels
to the south, which implicates that a signicant share of the passengers in that area opts for the indirect alternative offered by
Brussels.
For practical reasons of computer run time, only the NUTS-3 regions in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Western
part of Germany were included in this analysis. Therefore Schiphols market shares in the hinterland regions in France and the
Eastern part of Germany were not modelled. Fig. 1 however indicates that the catchment area of Schiphol for Xiamen extents into
France and the Eastern part of Germany.
The market shares Schiphol obtains in the various hinterland regions do not differ much between travel motives. Therefore the gures for leisure and business travel show strong resemblance and
only the gures for the business motive is given. In general however, leisure passengers are more willing to depart from airports
further away to take advantage of lower ticket prices offered from
such airports than business passengers. This generally results in a
larger catchment area for leisure passengers. In case no cheap direct alternatives from other airports exist, as is the case with Xiamen, leisure passengers to a larger degree prefer cheaper indirect
alternatives from other airports. When competing direct alternatives are therefore lacking, catchment areas for leisure passengers
could potentially be smaller than for business passengers.
The market shares for all other destinations offered either direct
or indirect by carriers operating out of Schiphol were measured in
the same way. By weighing these market shares by the size of the
destinations in terms of departing passengers, one obtains the
weighted average market shares for Schiphol as well as its
weighted average catchment area size. Fig. 2 shows the weighted
average market shares for Schiphol in 2011 as well as the change
in market share between 2005 and 2011.
Between 2005 and 2011 Schiphol lost up to 8% points of market
share in the Northern and Eastern NUTS-3 regions to airports such
as Dortmund, Dsseldorf, Hannover and Eindhoven. In Belgium
Schiphols market shares dropped most signicantly in the southern province of Namur. Here Schiphol mainly lost market to Brussels Airport and Eindhoven Airport.
Due to the growth of regional airports, offering mainly European destinations, one might expect the largest market share decreases in the intra-European market. The opposite is however
true as Figs. 3 and 4 illustrate. Fig. 3 presents the weighted average

Table 1
Competing airports in the hinterland of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
Country

Airport

Netherlands

GRQ
ENS
LEY
RTM
EIN
MST
BRU
ANR
OST
CRL
LGG
LUX

Belgium

Luxemburg

Groningen
Enschede
Lelystad
Rotterdam
Eindhoven
Maastricht
Brussels
Antwerp
Ostend
Charleroi
Liege
Luxembourg

Country

Airport

Germany

BRE
HAM
HAJ
DUS
NRN
CGN
FMO
PAD
DTM
HHN
FRA
STR

Bremen
Hamburg
Hanover
Dsseldorf
Niederrhein (Weeze)
Cologne/Bonn
Muenster
Paderborn
Dortmund
Frankfurt (Hahn)
Frankfurt Main
Stuttgart

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R. Lieshout / Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012) 2734

Malaga (AGP)

Xiamen (XMN)

Fig. 1. Catchment area for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and its market shares therein for ights to Malaga and Xiamen, business passengers, 2011.

2011

Market share change 2005-2011

Fig. 2. Catchment area for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and market shares weighted over all destinations offered, business passengers, 2011 and change since 2005.

2011

Market share change 2005-2011

Fig. 3. Catchment area for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and market shares weighted over all European destinations offered, business passengers, 2011 and change since 2005.

market shares for Schiphol for all European destinations offered direct and indirect from the airport, including the market share
changes since 2005. Fig. 4 presents the same information for all

the intercontinental destinations offered direct and indirect from

Schiphol. The gures show that the market shares of Schiphol airport in the hinterland regions are larger for the intercontinental

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R. Lieshout / Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012) 2734

2011

Market share change 2005-2011

Fig. 4. Catchment area for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and market shares weighted over all intercontinental destinations offered, business passengers, 2011 and change
since 2005.

destinations than for European destinations, as competition from

nearby airports is generally more limited on the intercontinental
routes.8
In most hinterland regions, market shares to European destinations decreased. Only in the south-western part of the Netherlands
and the western part of Belgium market shares slightly increased
due to a relatively large increase in the service level offered in
terms of frequencies and destinations.
Remarkably Schiphols market shares to intercontinental destinations have decreased most signicantly also in the western part
of Belgium as well as on axis towards the north of Germany. In Belgium Schiphol lost most market share to Brussels Airport, Charleroi, Eindhoven and Cologne. In Germany the airport lost most to
Dsseldorf, Niederrhein and Eindhoven. All these airports increased their portfolios of intercontinental destinations. Low-cost
airports such as Charleroi, Eindhoven and Niederrhein added
mostly leisure destinations in Turkey and the Northern part of Africa to their portfolio. The larger airports of Brussels and Dsseldorf
added ights to existing and new intercontinental destinations,
such as Atlanta, New York Newark, Beijing, Houston, Toronto and
many more. When these destinations are hub airports and the
ights are operated by their respective hub carriers (or their alliance partners), the new ights generate additional indirect travel
alternatives to a multitude of new intercontinental destinations.
Schiphols market shares are therefore affected on a large number
of intercontinental destinations.
The methodology presented delivers results that are intuitively
sound. Although parts of the used model have been validated, validation of the results is of importance. This requires data on passenger shares in each hinterland region for specic destinations.
Although some larger airports conduct surveys among passengers
at their airport, there is to no public data available on airport passenger shares at the required level of detail.
5. Conclusions
Usually airport catchment areas are depicted by drawing concentric circles around the airports. The radii of these circles are
based on an assumption of a maximum access time of around
2 h. Although this approach is a straightforward and easy to apply
and interpret, it results in a static image of an airports catchment
8
When more hinterland regions to the south and (south)east had been included in
the analysis, it would have been possible to show that the catchment area of Schiphol
is also larger for intercontinental routes.

area as it ignores the driving factors behind passenger airport

choice: airport access times, ight frequencies offered and airfares
offered. This means that it ignores the fact that airport market
shares tend to decrease when one moves further away from the
airport. Furthermore it assumes that catchment areas do not differ
between travel motives and destinations offered from an airport.
The methodology presented in this paper does take the driving
factors behind airport choice into account when measuring the size
of airport catchment areas and the airports market shares therein.
It allows one to show how these differ by travel motive and destination and how they evolve over time. In addition the methodology allows one to estimate the effects on an airports catchment
area of infrastructure improvements or improvements in an airports service offering.
The methodology was applied to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
The results show that the size of its catchment area differs considerably by destination. For destinations which are also offered from
nearby airports, its catchment area is relatively small or otherwise
put: market shares in regions further away quickly diminish. The
opposite is also true; when the service level offered by Schiphol
is relatively high compared to that of surrounding airports, it will
attract passengers from regions further away. By weighing over
the destinations offered by Schiphol a weighted average catchment
area, including the market shares therein was determined. The
growth of airports to the south and southeast of Schiphol has decreased the size of its catchment area as well as the market shares
therein. Remarkably the largest market share decreases were
found in the intercontinental markets served by Schiphol. This
can partly be ascribed to new destinations offered from the airports to the south and southeast, but also to the fact that many
of these destinations are large international hub airports which
generate indirect alternative to a multitude of other intercontinental destinations. Especially for the intercontinental markets it is
therefore of importance to include indirect travel alternatives into
the analysis.
The methodology allows airports to evaluate the spatial nature
of their catchment area to understand passenger airport choice and
the competitive forces in their respective hinterland regions. It
identies the regions where market share is relatively low and
the reasons behind it. The methodology provides them with a tool
to assess the catchment area effects of changes to service level
offerings (in terms of frequencies and fares). Airports may also
use the catchment area information in their marketing efforts towards airlines. Furthermore, the methodology may be of use to
policymakers as it not only provides them with information on

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R. Lieshout / Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012) 2734

the competitive position of airports in the OD-markets served, but

also use it to assess the effects of infrastructure investments, exante as well as ex-post.
Further research needs to focus on rening the model in terms of
access costs, i.e. distinguishing between passengers who actually
park their car at the airport and passengers who are brought to
the airport by relatives. Including (high-speed) rail services as an
alternative access mode would also be recommended. Rail services
are well distributed in Europe and therefore may provide a good
alternative to the car, especially to those having easy access to rail
services to airports. Airports which are well-connected to the railnetwork are better accessible than airports that are not (well) connected to the rail-network. The omission of rail services as an access
mode therefore underestimates the market shares and catchment
areas of airports that are well connected to the rail-network and
overestimates the market shares and catchment areas of airports
that are not. In short-haul markets high-speed trains may also compete head-to-head with air carriers. Including high-speed services
would allow one to determine the effect of these services on airport
market shares. Validation of the model results is also of importance.
This requires data on passenger shares in each hinterland region for
specic destinations. Such data can be obtained by surveying passengers on the trips made in a certain time period and airports that
were used. Passenger surveys have been carried out in the past, but
the resulting data is not publicly available.
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