An International Hub Airport Selection Problem Using Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (F-AHP): Real Case Study in Turkey

Abstract

In recent years, air transportation volume has been significantly growing with the help of recent technological development related to the airline industry. Airline companies utilize their scarce resources such as aircraft, crew, and slot time based on airport regulation and capacity constraints efficiently to meet passenger demand; however, the limited capacity of the airport’s immobile resources leads airlines to search for new hub alternatives. Hub selection is one of the most crucial decisions for airline companies’ strategy and also the selected hub’s future planning and operational strategy. This research aims to propose a solution method for selecting the best potential hub alternative among many potential hubs in a single hub system considering six main criteria: the potential hub’s city population, the distance between the existing hub (İstanbul airport), the capacity, the intensity, the distance between city location, and the accessibility. F-AHP is used as a solution methodology to evaluate each criterion and the proposed hubs. The computational experiment is conducted based on the potential twelve international airports in Turkey for the selection of an international hub airport considering the six aforementioned criteria. The results indicate that accessibility of the airport is the most crucial criterion among the six criteria, and Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport is the best eligible alternative to be an international hub. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.