From the Back Cover

Beginning with Southwest Airlines in the 1970s, low-cost carriers (LCCs) have democratized air travel around the world, fostering huge increases in airline traffic and transforming the airline industry. At the same time however, the ascent of these budget airlines has exacerbated aviation-related problems such as aircraft noise, airport congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, and more.

LCCs have been extensively studied in the US and Europe but not in emerging regions of the globe. Yet the impact of such airlines is greatest in low- and middle-income economies where only a small fraction of the population has ever flown, and where competition from alternative modes (road, rail) is weak.

Low-Cost Airline Carriers in Emerging Countries traces the development of LCCs in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, examining airlines that have become significant players in their home markets but little known at a global scale. The book maps the geography of the LCC phenomenon, explaining the starkly varying success of budget airlines, and assessing their current social, economic, and environmental impacts. The book concludes with insights into the future potential of the LCC phenomenon along with its global ramifications.

About the Author

John T. Bowen, Jr. has spent the past twenty years researching the airline industry. He is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography at Central Washington University, the author of The Economic Geography of Air Transportation: Space, Time, and the Freedom of the Sky (Routledge, 2010), and numerous aviation articles published in Journal of Air Transport Management, Journal of Transport Geography, and Journal of Economic Geography. Previous to joining academia, he worked for Singapore Airlines.