Development of transportation i̇ndustry in Turkey and the determinants of airline firm preference: A case study of İzmir

Many researches have been carried out on airway transportation which has stopped being regarded as a luxury and has become a need today with the increase of the significance of time. The aim of this study is to find out which factors are influential in company preferences of people concerning airway transportation and how these factors are influential. First part of the study deals with the micro economic dimension of the research subject. Once the demand concept was studied from the point of company and consumer, oligopoly market was introduced. Transportation market is among the ones that are big and difficult to analyse. The second part began with information about the market then size of the market was tried to be explained using economic indicators. In this respect, Multi-nominal Logit Model was used for econometric analysis. It was significant in model election that the dependant variable directed to the consumer had three options. This analysis was intended for finding out which factors were influential in company preferences. The findings revealed that affordability of tickets, early reservation discounts, comfort of companies, direct flight options, the company's being a government property, richness of offerings, average personal income and attitude of the person against the risk factors were influential in their company preferences. It was also revealed in analysis as opposed to expectations that, company preferences did not change according to demographical factors such as gender, age, education or occupation. Key Words: Airline Firm Preference, Transportation İndustry, Multinomial Logit Model, Adnan Menderes Airport