Evolution of the intellectual structure of research on pricing strategy of low cost carriers

Low Cost Carriers played a significant role in the evolution of air passengers transport industry. Many researchers showed how, since the first experiences of Southwest and the leading role of Ryanair and EasyJet, the dynamics of pricing contributed to modify behaviors of customers, competitors and other stakeholders. Furthermore, the liberalization of markets enhanced these effects, still requiring a certain degree of support from governments and regulators. Even if lesson learned from the most successful cases can help to identify some general results and specific drivers of success, a general framework to describe and explain the role of different contributions and experiences is missing. This paper offers an extensive and complete literature review on Low Cost Carriers' pricing policies, strategies and practices to identify current and modern trends, trying to answer to the still open research questions in the field. By the application of Factor Analysis and Multi-Dimensional Scaling, this paper identifies the main streams of research and address potential future directions.