Applied economic reasoning in air transport management: A question- and concept-level analysis of an airport business course

Economic reasoning underpins business decision-making. Yet how it is taught and assessed in air transport management education remains underexplored. Drawing on final-exam data from an Airport Business course for non-specialists at a Japanese university, this study identifies aspects of assessed economic reasoning that appeared relatively more demanding. At the question level, the higher-difficulty side concerned airport network financing, restructuring, and public support, whereas the lower-difficulty side addressed charge pass-through, the club-good characteristics of small-airport services, and concession-contract risks. At the concept level, government failure, incentives, and user-pays lay on the higher-difficulty side, while demand and costs, price discrimination, and public, private, and club goods fell on the lower-difficulty side. This concept-level pattern did not follow a simple foundational–advanced distinction, with positions varying across institutional contexts and concept co-occurrence. These patterns remained broadly stable in supplementary analyses assessing sensitivity to question selection. The findings add a question- and concept-level perspective to research on air transport management education.