抄録
Today, Japanese air transportation market has the following major issue. Levels of service were set low for most routes to airports located in underpopulated regional areas. Since the potential demand has not surfaced on such routes, airlines have lowered the provided levels further, consequently getting caught in a vicious circle. To improve this situation, the government's public assistance to airlines is considered effective. The purpose of this study is to verify effects of public assistance for regional air service. Specifically, two points were examined: 1) analysis of the role of public subsidies in the formation of a regional air network, 2) quantitative analysis of the economic ripple effect on Hokkaido by the operation of HAC. In conclusion, the following two findings were obtained: 1) the subsidies contributed to early expansion of the regional air network, 2) the economic ripple effect reached approximately ¥1.15 billion for five years after starting operation.
