Low Cost Carrier Model in India

A new working paper which may interest blog readers is Manisha Gupta's Low Cost Carrier Model in India (Working Paper, Jan. 19, 2010) (available from SSRN here).  From the abstract:

Difficult market conditions since 2008, including oil price volatibility, slump in air travel demand, and economic downturn have had a spiraling effect on the airline industry, leading to a record number of airline insolvencies across the globe. Despite the situation, the low cost carrier model has proven to be a fairly popular business model internationally, owing to the cheap air fares. However, the model is yet to acquire a competitive pricing position in the domestic Indian market. Limited infrastructure and lack of favorable regulatory policies are among the primary reasons for low market penetration. This paper reviews existing aviation industry literature to reason the policy challenges, including the policy of fee waiver cap on aircrafts with less than 80 seats/or weighing less than 21 tones. The paper concludes that the environmental cost of local air pollution around the airport is a function of an aircraft’s seating configuration and the maximum seating capacity demand on the given air route instead of the size of the aircrafts.