Potential effects of tighter fiscal regime applied to Air Passenger Transport: the case for the European low-cost airlines

In the past fifty years, Civil Aviation has experienced a significant and continuous growth, which is forecasted to persist at increasing rates in the next decades.
Nowadays air-transport represents an affordable and widely diffused transport mode for long, medium and even short hauls.
The low-cost carriers (LCCs) played an important role in the European Air Passenger Transport market, as they proved extremely successful in stimulating increasing demand for air-transport.
The benefits brought by air-transport for the global and local economies are huge; however, air-traffic imposes heavy costs on the environment and the population living in the proximity of airports. Therefore, the implementation of measures able to curb the continuous growth experienced so far is sought by different parts of the scientific and political world.
This research aims to explore the economic, social and environmental implications of civil aviation, the role of low-cost carriers in the European air-transport market and the potential effects that fiscal measures implemented to curb air-traffic growth are likely to produce on such market niche.
In particular, the focus will be on the potential effects of a tighter fiscal regime applied to aviation on the demand for LCCs. The reasons for such choice lie on the success and the continuing expansion of the low-cost sector, the fact that LCCs operate almost exclusively on short-hauls and thus in direct competition more sustainable transport modes such as railways and the fact that the demand for lowfare air-transport features peculiar characteristics and is expected to be highly pricesensitive.
The first chapter introduces the topic and illustrates the background of the study.
The relevant literature on air-transport, its implications, viable alternatives and applied economic studies is reviewed in the second chapter. The research approach, ontology issues, epistemology and the limitations of the study are dealt with in the third chapter. The results of the research are illustrated in chapter six, whilst conclusion and Recommendation are provided in chapter seven.