| Summary: | Permanent cost pressure forces airlines to reduce operating costs at all levels.
Therefore, European network carriers (NWC) actively benchmark with low cost carriers
(LCC). One of the LCCs' advantages is the higher daily aircraft utilization that leads to
cost reductions between two and five percent. Primarily, the inefficiency of the NWC
lies in the necessity to schedule a wave structure at its hub to allow good connection to
other flights. Due to flight durations that do not fit with the wave structure, longer ground times at the
spokes have to be planned to compensate for differences. By employing a W-routing of the aircraft instead of a shuttle-routing the additional waiting times can be avoided in
many cases. This method is possible if a certain spoke is connected to more than one
destination in the airlines' network. That is usually true for spokes in multi-hub networks.
Applying the strategy to the Lufthansa multi-hub network - consisting of the hubs
Frankfurt and Munich - will change aircraft routing from FRA-X-FRA to FRA-X-MUC-XFRA
in case the shuttle-routing would cause waiting times at X. Nevertheless, each FRA-X-MUC-X-FRA routing has to fit not only with the wave structure of Frankfurt, but also with the wave structure of Munich. Depending on the offset in time between both structures, most flights can be rerouted efficiently and do, therefore, not violate against
the wave structure of FRA or MUC. If a certain destination cannot be served efficiently even when being rerouted, adding Dusseldorf as a third hub has high probability to
solve the problem. (author's abstract) === Series: Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Transportwirtschaft und Logistik - Verkehr
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