The Role of Secondary Airports for Today's Low-Cost Carrier Business Models: The European Case

One of the core characteristics of Low-Cost Carriers (LCCs) is their use of secondary and regional airports. However, nothing is fixed as the market constantly evolves and carriers modify their strategies in order to achieve growth. This paper uses the examples of Ryanair, easyJet and Norwegian to show how changes to LCC business models are affecting secondary airports across Europe. Using a content analysis, this paper first describes how airport choice factors for LCCs have evolved over the last 10 years. This is followed by a data analysis of historical and current airline network capacity to identify how LCC traffic at secondary airports is developing. The paper finds that cost, demand and efficiency are still the most important criteria for LCCs when choosing an airport to operate from. However, it also identifies that LCCs have become more interested in serving business passengers, which is why they are increasingly using primary airports (accounting for 58% of their recent capacity growth). Through the use of a selection of case airports it is finally concluded that the evolution of LCCs increases competition between primary and secondary gateways. In most cases, secondary airports are losing a significant amount of LCC traffic and only sustain flights to less important destinations. This research puts into question the future importance of secondary airports for LCCs. As not all airports have been impacted by the hybridisation of LCCs to the same extent, the results are not equally applicable to the whole European airport industry

The sensitivity and specificity of four questions (HARK) to identify intimate partner violence: a diagnostic accuracy study in general practice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Intimate partner violence (IPV) including physical, sexual and emotional violence, causes short and long term ill-health. Brief questions that reliably identify women experiencing IPV who present in clinical settings are a pre-requisite for an appropriate response from health services to this substantial public health problem. We estimated the sensitivity and specificity of four questions (HARK) developed from the Abuse Assessment screen, compared to a 30-item abuse questionnaire, the Composite Abuse Scale (CAS).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We administered the four HARK questions and the CAS to women approached by two researchers in general practice waiting rooms in Newham, east London. Inclusions: women aged more than 17 years waiting to see a doctor or nurse, who had been in an intimate relationship in the last year. Exclusions: women who were accompanied by children over four years of age or another adult, too unwell to complete the questionnaires, unable to understand English or unable to give informed consent.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two hundred and thirty two women were recruited. The response rate was 54%. The prevalence of current intimate partner violence, within the last 12 months, using the CAS cut off score of ≥3, was 23% (95% C.I. 17% to 28%) with pre-test odds of 0.3 (95% C.I. 0.2 to 0.4). The receiver operator characteristic curve demonstrated that a HARK cut off score of ≥1 maximises the true positives whilst minimising the false positives. The sensitivity of the optimal HARK cut-off score of ≥1 was 81% (95% C.I. 69% to 90%), specificity 95% (95% C.I. 91% to 98%), positive predictive value 83% (95% C.I. 70% to 91%), negative predictive value 94% (95% C.I. 90% to 97%), likelihood ratio 16 (95% C.I. 8 to 31) and post-test odds 5.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The four HARK questions accurately identify women experiencing IPV in the past year and may help women disclose abuse in general practice. The HARK questions could be incorporated into the electronic medical record in primary care to prompt clinicians to ask about recent partner violence and to encourage disclosure by patients. Future research should test the effectiveness of HARK in clinical consultations.</p

Beyond a single story: The importance of separating 'harm' from 'wrongfulness' and 'sexual innocence' from 'childhood' in contemporary narratives of childhood sexual abuse

This article draws on research exploring adult women’s engagement with narratives of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and identifies implications for both child and adult victims. As this research showed, any single story cannot accommodate all experiences. When that single story becomes dominant those whose experiences are not acknowledged are at risk of being silenced and left without a narrative framework to make sense of their experiences, which in turn risk being unrecognised as abuse by others. The article looks at contemporary understandings of CSA and argues for the need to move beyond a single damage narrative in which victims are constructed as sexually innocent, weak and passive and seen to be inevitably damaged by their experiences. The article argues for the need to separate wrongfulness from harm and (sexual) innocence from childhood. This would enable us to recognise sexual abuse in all sexually abused children, including those who do not conform to sexual innocence, and to recognise that CSA is wrong irrespective of psychological damage. In doing so, it is argued, we would all be better equipped to recognise sexual abuse and victims would be better able to tell their own stories which may, but may not, include psychological damage

The End of European Charter Airlines: Myths and Realities

The end of European charter airlines on short- and medium-haul routes has been widely forecast since the end of the nineties. However, surprisingly the literature lacks analyses of charter airline networks at the city-pair level. Here the gap is filled by conducting a case study of two main European charter airlines, Thomson Airways and Condor. There is an analysis of their network evolution at route level and route distance range variations, and the impact of low-cost competition. Against all claims and predictions, the results show only a slight move of both airlines towards long-haul services. The short- and medium-haul business has remained the dominant part of their business.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe