The objective of this paper is to understand the financial dynamics of the airline industry by identifying profit cycle periods of the industry and their driving factors. Assuming that the industry profit cycles could be modeled as an undamped second-order system, the fundamental cycle period...

(cont.) the essential factors affecting traditional measures of airline performance following low-fare entry. Our simulation results show that these measures are greatly affected by the entrant's capacity relative to the incumbent, by the incumbent carrier's competitive pricing response, and by...

Air transportation usage and economic activity are interdependent. Air transportation provides employment and enables certain economic activities which are dependent on the availability of air transportation services. The economy, in turn, drives the demand for air transportation services...

"Intellectual capital" has been heralded in business journals as an important component for successful business development in today's economy. Intellectual capital consists of knowledge-based assets -- including people, relationships, tools, and processes - that create value for a firm and its...

Numerical simulation models that support decision-making and policy-making processes are often complex, involving many disciplines, and long computation times. These models typically have many factors of different character, such as operational, design-based, technological, and economics-based....

System acquisition decision makers are frequently charged with choosing a single system from a set of feasible possibilities that could best fulfill the needs of their organizations. While numerous rules and regulations are already in place for both commercial and government acquisitions to...

During the design process, risk is mentioned often, but, due to the lack of a quantitative parameter that engineers can understand and trade, infrequently impacts major design decisions. The definition of risk includes two elements - probability and impact. As a result of heritage techniques...

Decisions that guide technology investment and policy-making for the future of air transportation will be based in part on the tradeoffs between environmental performance and economics. The Environmental Design Space (EDS) project explores the tradeoffs between noise, emissions, and economics...

An analytic formula is derived in this thesis for the risk-adjusted financial value of a labor contract. The contract is modeled as a bond with a payment stream equivalent to the stipulated wages. The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is used to determine the expected return from the bond...

Preventing accidents in complex socio-technical systems requires an approach to risk management that continuously monitors risk and identifies potential areas of concern before they lead to hazards, and constrains hazards before they lead to accidents. This research introduces the concept of...