Huber , Finger 1 EUROPEAN AIRLINE NETWORKS – WHICH STRATEGY FOR AIRLINES ?

Airline networks may be interpreted as structures that express strategic choices made by airlines to serve or not to serve given airports. Research into network strategies of airlines in the past has focused on economies (of density) and market power. More recent research focuses on managerial decisions related to capacity choices, such as the frequency or scheduling of flights, which are related to the size and evolution of hub-and-spoke networks. Other streams of research within the natural sciences, have characterized many networks as not random chaotic structures but as efficient complex formations. This paper will interpret European hub-and-spoke networks as complex networks in the sense of statistical physics and classify their structural components into distinctive connectivity distributions. From the identified distributions, implications will be drawn for strategic management in general and for hub-and-spoke airlines in particular.