Journal of Korean Society of Transportation ISSN:1229-1366(Print) 2234-4217(Online) 대한교통학회지

Since 1990, demand for air travel in the Asia-Pacific region has been growing at a much higher rate than in other regions. The main reason is the role of low cost carriers (LCCs). Incheon International Airport (ICN), the representative airport of the region, was selected for analysis. The purposes of this study are to investigate the effect of LCC on the network structure of hub airport, and also examined whether the LCC contributes to airport revenue and how it affects the operation of the hub airport due to the increase in the number of flights operated by the LCC in terms of airport operations. In terms of network structure, ICN has been found to have increased network length and density due to the significant contribution of LCCs since 2010. As a result, the number of passengers at ICN has increased year by year, and the number of aircraft flights has also increased. ICN can be evaluated as having balanced development of short, middle and long-haul routes due to its network structure. However, recent rapid increase in the number of flights on medium and short distance routes by LCCs has been evaluated to have a negative impact on airside congestion and delay. Also, considering the characteristics of LCCs, which have relatively small-size aircraft operations in terms of airport profitability, their contribution to landing fees was low.