We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the people who have been instrumental in the successful completion of the research for this book.
First and foremost, we would like to give special thanks to Declan Ryan and James Muldowney from Irelandia Aviation who embarked with us on this project from day one and have been providing us with input and feedback throughout the two years of this research.
We would also like to show our gratitude for the invaluable assistance, support, and guidance we have received from experts within the airline industry to produce this book. We would, in particular, like to convey thanks to Anish Goel, Suzanne Raubenstine, and David Gamrath from the Boeing Company; Simon Pickup from Airbus; Phillippe Poutissou and Antonio Ficca from Bombardier; Hemen Shah from 8 Miles; Niko Herrmann from Oliver Wyman; and Niko Bezuidenhout from Mango Airlines. In addition, we would like to acknowledge the contributions of Elizabeth Kiguta and Alexey Smachtin.
We would also like to thank our colleagues at the World Bank who prepared important input or acted as peer reviewers, providing comments and suggestions for improving this research. These include Daniel Saslavsky, trade specialist, for his contribution of researching and authoring the section in chapter 4 on a market-entry LCC model in the Arab Republic of Egypt; Pierre Pozzo di Borgo, senior investment officer; Reindert Westra, senior urban transport specialist; Jean-Francois Arvis, senior economist; Vincent Vesin, transport specialist; Linda Tiemoko, knowledge management analyst, and Shruti Vijayakumar, air transport specialist, for their help throughout the publishing process. Furthermore, we wish to express our gratitude to Jose Luis Irigoyen, director of the Transport, Water and ICT Department, and Marc Juhel, sector manager, Transport, for supporting this research.
Finally we would like to thank our respective families, partners, and friends for their endless support and loving patience throughout the process of writing this book.