在價格管制下國內航空公司之競爭行為分析

Abstract

過往文獻中，多數皆為在假設航空公司的投資成本與營運成本都能清楚歸類的情況下，依航線別(即考慮單一特定路線)對競爭行為建構模式。然而實際上，多數航空公司經營不只一條航線，且為了使公司總體利潤最大，業者們會根據自身的經營環境，在不同航線上採取不同的競爭策略，並作機隊及組員的分配。由於規模經濟及資源缺乏的限制，個別且分開地對每一條經營的航線作利潤最大化並不一定會使公司總體利潤達到最大。經營航線數較多的航空公司將比經營航線數較少者能有較高的機會使自身機隊作更有效地利用。如此情況下，經營航線數不同的公司之間就會產生不公平的競爭，故在特定的路線上對航空公司的競爭行為建構模式很有可能導致錯誤的結果，因此，航空公司的競爭行為應在同時考慮所有經營的航線下，依公司別來建構模式。 此外，台灣是目前世界上少數仍對國內航空市場採取價格管制的國家之一。為保留航空公司定價彈性的空間，票價被允許在政府管制的上下限內彈性變動。意即某種程度上來說壓縮定價的空間會減輕航空公司間的競爭。故若未得知航空公司在受管制市場的競爭行為的話，是不可能提出一個有效的價格管制政策。 在這樣的基礎上，本研究旨為在價格管制的國內航空市場內對航空公司在票價及服務班次上的競爭行為建立模式。顯然地，這是個三層賽局。最上層為政府如何作價格管制，第二層為在競爭(納許及史坦克伯格)及勾結環境中航空公司如何決定所有經營航線上的票價及班次數使得利潤達到最大。最後一層為乘客如何選擇運具及航空公司使自身的效益達到最大。 為探討模式的適用性，試作兩個例子分別為單一航線兩家航空公司競爭及四條航線四家航空公司競爭，與一個實例探討為四條航線兩家航空公司競爭。結果顯示運輸市場中除同業對手外，具有高競爭力的地面運具也會影響航空公司的決策；另航空公司的競爭力與其經濟規模和獨占路線數有密不可分的關係。數個航空公司勾結(價格勾結)的情境中將可幫助航空公司追求更高的利潤。最後，我們也確認價格管制在航空公司競爭中佔為一個很重要的角色，尤其是對獨占航線作價格管制。因此，一個合適的價格管制可保護顧客免遭受濫用的獨占力之中且防止航空公司間的割喉價格戰。

Unlike most of the previous models attempting to model the competition behaviors at the route-level (i.e. considering only one specific route) by assuming that aircraft investment and operation costs of airlines can be clearly classified among their operating routes. However, in practice, most airlines operate more than one route and allocate their flight crew and aircraft fleets among their operating routes and may adopt different competition strategies for different routes according to their own operating environments so as to maximize the profit of the whole company. Due to scale economy and resource scarcity, to individually and separately maximize the profits of all operating routes may not necessarily lead to the profit maximization of a whole company. The airlines operating greater number of routes might have a higher chance to more effectively utilize their aircraft fleet than those having fewer routes. In such circumstances, unfair competition might occur among the airlines operating different number of air routes. To separately model airline competition behaviours on a specific route might result into a misleading result. Therefore, the airline competition behaviours should be modeled at the company-level by considering all operating routes simultaneously. Additionally, Taiwan is one of the few countries in the world which still has effective price regulation on domestic air market. To retain the room for pricing flexibility of airlines, airfare is allowed to be flexibly changed within the upper and lower airfares regulated by the government. That is, to squeeze the room may lessen airline competition to some degrees. Without knowing the airline competition behaviors under such a regulated market, it is impossible to propose an effective price regulation policy. Based on these, this study aims to model airlines competition behaviors on airfare and service frequency under a regulated airfares domestic air transport market. Obviously, this is a three-level game. The upper level is how the government makes the price regulation. The second level is how airlines to decide their airfares and service frequencies among their operating routes so as to maximize their own profit under competitive (Nash and Stackelberg) and collusive environments. The final level is how passengers choose transport modes and airlines so as to maximize their own utility. To investigate the applicability of the proposed model, two exemplified examples of the competition of two airlines on a single route and the competition of four airlines on four routes and one case study on the competition of two airlines on four air routes are conducted. The results show that in addition to the airlines in the market, surface transport modes which have high competitive power also affect the decisions of airlines. Additionally, airlines’ competitive power is closely related to its economic scale and the number of its monopolistic routes. Collusion (collusively pricing) among airlines can help airlines pursue for higher profits. At last, we also confirm that price regulation plays an important role in airline competitions, especially in monopolistic routes. Thus, a proper price regulation can protect customers from abused monopoly power and prevent cut-throat competition among airlines.