The Economic Geography of Air Transportation: Space, Time, and the Freedom of the Sky

ISBN-13: 9780415778053 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 352 str.

John T. Bowen

Opis

Like the railroad and the automobile, the airliner has changed the very geography of the societies it serves. Fundamentally, air transportation has helped redefine the scale of human geography by dramatically reducing the cost of distance, both in terms of time and money. The result is what John T. Bowen Jr. terms the airborne world, meaning all those places dependent upon and transformed by relatively inexpensive air transportation. Drawing upon hundreds of mainly secondary sources, this book answers three questions: how did air transportation develop in the century after the Wright Brothers, what does it mean to live in an airborne world, and what is the future of aviation in this century?

Bowen explores how air transportation has affected human geography, including everything from sex tourism to the wintertime supply of fresh produce and synthesises aspects of air transportation not usually dealt with jointly. Specifically, the book weaves together the technological development of aviation, the competition among aircraft manufacturers and their stables of airliners, the deregulation and privatization of the airline industry, the articulation of air passenger and air cargo services in everyday life, and the challenges and controversies surrounding airports. Bowen gives ample consideration to developing countries where air transportation is growing rapidly and where, to a considerable degree, the future of the airborne world will be determined.

Spis treści

1. Introduction  Part 1: Getting Airborne: The Development of the Airliner and Commercial Air Transportation  2. Jetting Towards a Smaller World: Early Commercial Aviation  3. Far and Wide: Wide-body Jetliners and the Growth of the Global Airline Industry  4. Space-Makers and Pace-Setters: Boeing and Airbus  Part 2: Open Skies and a Crowd of Competitors  5. Letting Go: The Liberalization of the Airline Industry  6. Survival of the Fittest: Network Carriers in the Global Airline Industry  7. A World Taking Wing: Low Cost Carriers and the Ascent of the Many  Part 3: Life Aloft and on the Ground in the Airborne World  8.People on the Move at 1,000 Kilometers per Hour  9. The High Ways of Trade  10. Points of Departure: Airports in the Airborne World  11. Dangers Hidden in the Air: The Broader Costs of Commercial Aviation  Part 4: Beyond the Horizon  12. Coming Back Down to Earth? The Cloudy Future of Air Transportation

O autorze

John T. Bowen is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Central Washington University, USA.