journal of transportation and statistics - Research and Innovative ...

FIGURE 3 Forecast Figures for Movements andPassengers at GVA1801701601501e79e68e67e66e6Number of movements(thousands)Number of passengersMovements actualForecast1401990 1995 2000 2005Passenger actualForecastAircraft MovementsObservedvaluesObservedvaluesPassengers5e61990 1995 2000 2005significant negative coefficient for both series, passengersand movements, indicating that the shift inboth trends is decreasing. The model is a smoothedtrend with a drift.Figure 4 shows the slope, namely the rate ofgrowth for the series. For movements, the range wasabout 5% (from 6% to 1%) and was quite steady.For passengers, the range was about 19% (from18% to –1%). The figure also shows the externalshocks for both series. Indeed, the rate of growthZRH passengers becomes negative in the same yearthat Swissair went bankrupt.Analysis for BSL AirportThe analysis of BSL airport uses observations from1956 to 2002. The reason for chosing 1956 is thatat that time the facilities development process wasquite mature. When the airport reached 3 millionpassengers per year at the end of 1998, expansionseemed to be essential and urgent. Extension workon the terminal buildings will allow for furtherexpansion in the number of passengers in the future,to a capacity of 5 million per year.The model is a local linear trend, plus a cycle,having a common slope, which means a cointegration(2,2) for the two series. The estimated growthrate of the fitted stochastic trend is positive forpassengers (about 2%) and negative for movements(–2%) at the end of the sample period.Table 4(A) shows a high error in the overestimationfor passengers in 2003, which could be due tothe drastic reduction of flights by the national carrier,Swiss (elimination of 11 destinations and 7transfer flights since March 2003), which stronglyaffected the number of transit passengers. The goodperformance in the forecast of movements could beexplained, in part, by the increasing number ofcharters (over 3% against 2002) following thearrival of new carriers (EuroAirport 2004).The 2004 forecast is better for passengers than formovements, nevertheless both forecast figuresremain inside the confidence interval of one standarddeviation. On the one hand, the number of passengerson scheduled flights increased by 8% against2003, given the arrival of easyJet offering four newdestinations. On the other hand, the decrease in thenumber of movements is explained by the increasingload rate and the use of aircraft with larger capacity(EuroAirport 2005). The former fact explains theapparent contradiction of the increasing number ofpassengers despite a decreasing number of movements.Finally, this high error in the forecast suggeststhat Basel Airport is in a structural change phase(i.e., the percentage of transit passengers in 2004 was2%, whereas in the past it was approximately 28%).Nevertheless, BSL seems to be growing once againowing to a policy centered more on low-cost carriersand charters and much less on its original vocationof being a Euro-Hub.SCAGLIONE & MUNGALL 19