Who Will Take an Additional Cargo? The Study of Cargo Service Market of Russian Passenger Airlines

Abstract

The article undertakes to identify general laws of the market of cargo services performed by passenger flights, as well as its specific Russian features. The main target of the authors’ research was to separate a segment of ‘way’ cargo transported by passenger flights within the general structure of the air cargo market in order to study its qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Based on the industry statistics data, the authors studied the market segment of way cargo through a number of criteria: a type of market structure and a type of aircraft used, the total demand for cargo capacity, geographical characteristics of flights performed in the Russian Federation, and analyzed specific interactions between participants in this market. The cargo potential and the structure of the Russian market of air cargo services were evaluated with account to the industry features that affect interpretation of statistical data. The paper demonstrates existence of quantitative and qualitative interactions between the passenger and cargo components of regular passenger flights, as well as the impact of presence/absence of wide-body vessels on the cargo potential of a passenger airline. The authors discovered that most Russian air carriers are not sufficiently effective in utilizing their potential way cargo capacity on passenger flights.