A Segmentation Analysis of Air Passengers in European Countries

Fully integrated airport access requires managing many aspects from both the passengers’ and the operational point of view. It is noted that air passenger preferences, influenced by distance, time, and other travel-related factors, are one of the fundamentals for understanding airport choice within multi-region airport systems. Therefore, an online survey was conducted in Europe, collecting more than two thousand responses, from which passengers’ attitudes and motives for selecting airport access travel modes were obtained. On the basis of the mobility profile of respondents, Fuzzy C-means (FCM) clustering analysis was performed to identify segments with similar travel attributes. The outcomes of clustering were validated through the comparison between the FCM and K-means clustering algorithms. The results of the study showed that (i) the car was the most preferred mode of transport across different age groups, and (ii) waiting time, travel costs, and travel time were rated as important, with reliability identified as the most important factor when making travel mode choices. These findings may serve as a reference for improving multimodal airport access services and encouraging a shift from private to public transportation modes.