Editorial: Special Issue of Papers Selected by the Air Transport Research Society - Selected Topics on Applied Air Transport Economics

In this special issue of Transport Policy we have the pleasure of presenting a combination of papers presented at World Conferences of the Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) held in 2013 and 2014. The ATRS has provided a forum for aviation researchers since its formation in 1995 as a Special Interest Group of the World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTRS). In 2013 the WCTRS held its triennial conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 15 to 18 July during which event the ATRS organized sessions devoted to aviation topics. We have been able to draw on this material as well as on the 266 papers presented at the annual conference of the ATRS hosted by the University of Bergamo, Italy, on 26–29 June. The venue in this beautiful city inspired active

discussion and networking, but one measure of its success was that the authors represented 37 countries spread across the globe. These two world conferences in 2013 generated a wealth of research material and, in this special issue of Transport Policy, we have selected six papers which, in various ways, reflect a theme of

applied air transport economics.

The ATRS World Conference in 2014 was held from 17 to 20 July at the Kedge School of Business at Bordeaux, France. A feature of this event was that the International Transport Forum (ITF) at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the ATRS jointly convened two sessions on the theme of global aviation liberalization. The papers attracted a great deal of interest and stimulated active debate on aviation policy throughout the entire conference. The ATRS Executive felt that, given their relevance to current policy debates, every effort should be made to submit the papers for publication in a special issue of Transport Policy. Thanks to the efforts of the authors and the reviewers, the guest editors are therefore delighted to be able to add five of these papers in this special issue.