Selecting a New Flight Route Using the Combined Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Method in an Uncertainty Environment The Case of Iran Air

In the aviation industry, selecting the right new flight route and planning associated necessary capacities have a significant impact on airline revenue. If the selection is not done successfully, the company will face irreversible and costly effects in the long run. A new route is selected based on several criteria, most of which are contradictory. Choosing the right criteria and decision methodology leads to meeting the company's goals, which is significantly valuable. This study aims to select flight routes among the potential destinations for airlines.

To determine the final indicators from those extracted from the literature review, a survey questionnaire was developed based on the five points Likert scale (very low to very high) to collect the experts' viewpoints.  Being an airline executive with more than 20 years of experience and having at least a bachelor's degree were the selection criteria for the experts. After summarizing and averaging the viewpoints received, the criteria with less than the threshold of 60% of the total average score were removed (according to the Friedman test). Then, the final weight of each criterion was determined using the Fuzzy Hierarchical Analysis Process (FAHP). To verify the answers of the experts, the compatibility rate of the criteria and sub-criteria was calculated using Gogus and Butcher method. Then, using the COPRAS method, the priority of options, i.e., new flight routes were determined in the flights of Iran Air. 

The results indicated that among the four selected criteria, the economic criterion had the highest weight. Examining the weights obtained from the sub-criteria also indicated that in the economic criterion, the sub-criterion of "gross revenue expected by the company from established airline", in the marketing criterion, the sub-criterion of "tourism and trade flow rate", in the performance criterion, the sub-criterion " conformity of capacity of existing fleet with flight demands", in the geographical criterion, and the sub-criterion of "the effect of seasonal fluctuations on the route" were identified as the most significant sub-criteria. Also, the gross revenue criteria expected by the company and the number of airlines with the desired route were the most significant sub-criteria. Finally, among the five routes, the route from Tehran to Assaluyeh and the route from Ramsar to Mashhad were ranked as the first last routes.

One of the limitations of this study was the emphasis on domestic flight options due to the effects of sanctions, the problems faced by Iranian airlines, and the inability to provide world-class service to international passengers. As a result, the weight of the selected criteria on international flights may differ from the results obtained in this study. Also, the occurrence of the Covid-19 pandemic may affect the intention to travel by airlines, even in post-corona conditions, the effect of which has not been studied yet.

Selecting a flight path is one of the most practical concepts for airlines, which can be considered by appropriate criteria to make transportation criteria fit with the revenue generated. When the new route is selected according to the right criteria, both the number of trips and the airlines' revenue increase.

Creating new airlines will lead to the development of aviation, affecting the value chain of transportation directly and indirectly. According to recent estimates by the Air Transport Action Group, the impact of the whole economy (direct, indirect, induced, and related to tourism) on the global aviation industry is about 3.6% of the world’s GDP. The aviation industry has also created 65.5 million jobs worldwide of which, 10.2 million are direct jobs, and 55.3 million are indirectly related to the tourism industry.

Issues such as the specific conditions of the country related to sanctions and problems in the development of airlines (due to restrictions on aircraft imports), the monopoly of domestic airlines, differences in lifestyle, and cultural issues have made the determination of new airlines in Iran different from other countries. This issue makes it impossible to generalize its significant criteria to other parts of the world. Therefore, this study contributed to the identification and determination of the importance of air transportation criteria and the selection of new flight routes in the country.