The Contribution of Air Logistics to the Development of Sicilian Economy

The role, played by globalization and the “just in time” supplying logic in present world economic scenario, implies that the opportunity of frequent, quick, safe and low-priced freight deliveries can be considered a key element for competitiveness. For these reasons, transportation systems, in the last years, have been characterized by the diffusion of intermodality and the “hub and spoke” distribution pattern. The phenomenon of organizing freight transport services according to a network and modal integration logic, has involved also the air transport field: to meet the new requirements of freight transportation market, in many cases, airline companies have become “global players”, expanding their network, in order to develop links among the main economic centres in the world. The goods moving by air can be defined as “top range products”; which means that only high value products (“market value” and “need value”) and the perishable ones (from a physical and economic point of view) demand air transport. The research described in this abstract aims at determining the contribution that can derive from air logistics to face a challenging problem: overcoming the peripheral role, in international trade, played by Sicily, which can boast high quality outputs in the agroindustrial sector and in the high technology one. The research consists of the following stages: 1. Analysing the sicilian freight transport system, with regard to the demand-supply relationship, paying particular attention to the commodity typologies mentioned above. 2. Identifying key actions for the air cargo services, in order to make Sicily improve in competitiveness, also taking into account the possibility of connecting Sicily with hub airports. 3. Determining the economic and social impact of the proposed solutions, considering different evolutionary scenarios and using also input-output analysis techniques.