A Decision Making Model for Leasing/Purchasing an Aircraft for Airlines

• Main Authors: Cheng,Yu-Yu, 鄭郁于
• Other Authors: Chiou,Yu-Chiun
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/16145449325583657555

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 管理學院運輸物流學程 === 102 === Due to Asia’s booming aviation market, this study aims to develop a decision making model for leasing or purchasing an aircraft from airline’s point of view to meet the increased market demand based on the current operating aircraft fleet. Different from a large-scale aircraft fleet planning, this study only considers the acquisition of an additional aircraft. Therefore, the size of increased demand, the characteristics of the potential air routes to fly with, the current operating aircrafts, and the financial feasibility of the target airline company should be considered. To do so, this study uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to develop the analytical framework. A total of five criteria are proposed: Financial feasibility, Demand Compatibility, Aircraft Compatibility, Performance Reputation, Environmental Protection Reputation, each of which has two to four associated sub-criteria. To obtain the weights, a total of 10 experts with rich experiences in aircraft acquisition, management and maintenance are interviewed. Results show that the summated weights of the first three criteria, i.e. Financial feasibility, Demand Compatibility, Aircraft Compatibility, exceed 0.7, explaining the importance and dominance of these criteria. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed AHP model, a case study on an airline is conducted. A total of eight alternatives are compared, including four candidate aircraft types: Airbus 320, Airbus 330, Boeing 737, and Boeing 787 and two acquisition methods, lease or purchase. Additionally, one-stage decision (consider all criteria) and two stage decision processes (use of four criteria, except for Financial feasibility, to evaluate the type of aircraft and then use of Financial feasibility criteria to decide lease or purchase the chosen aircraft type). The evaluation results of two decision processes consistently show that to purchase the Airbus 320 is the best alternative for the target airline.