How to manage the effects of seasonality on your regional airport

Abstract

Regional airports are the backbone of connectivity in Europe, with key challenges for growth and development in terms of policy and regulatory requirements, environmental, social and financial sustainability. The mission of regional airports is to strive to offer their own region the best possible connectivity. They face a combination of new and harsher market conditions compounding structural economic viability issues, decarbonisation goals and the need to keep investing for the future. Seasonality is a huge challenge for many regional airports, as they need significant capacity during peaks, while that capacity remains unused the rest of the year. Facing the challenge of seasonality, it is imperative to identify solutions that optimise resources, both operational and financial, thereby ensuring the sustainability of the business. This paper provides several examples of European regional airports, with a particular focus on Turin, to illustrate the concrete solutions adopted by these airports to address the challenge of seasonality. The paper concludes by underscoring the advantages for airports and the reference territories that result from the extension of seasonality. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.