The likely resurgence of air traffic in the U.S. means that airport congestion is a problem that must soon be confronted by policy makers. As part of their policy response, it is probable that some form of congestion pricing will be imposed at selected U.S. airports in the relatively near...

This paper presents an extensive theoretical and empirical analysis of the choice of schedule buffers by airlines. With airline delays a continuing problem around the world, such an undertaking is valuable, and its lessons extend to other passenger transportation sectors. One useful lesson from...

This paper provides the first analysis of the trade-off between convenient flight connections and airport congestion. A continuous spatial model illustrates this trade-off in a framework where a small gap between flight operating times raises congestion while also shortening a connecting...

We investigate whether legacy U.S. airlines communicated via earnings calls to coordinate with other legacy airlines in offering fewer seats on competitive routes. To this end, we first use text analytics to build a novel dataset on communication among airlines about their capacity choices....

Using annual data on individual US airlines over the 1995-2015 period, this paper presents regression results relating an airline's total fuel usage to seven variables: the available ton miles of capacity (passengers plus freight and mail) provided by the airline; the average seat capacity of its...

Convenient scheduling, characterized by adequate flight frequency, is the main quality attribute for airline services. However, the effect of airline alliances on this important dimension of service quality has received almost no attention in the literature. This paper fills this gap by...

This paper explores the effects of a European airline merger followed by a consolidation of two competing international alliances. The exercise has been inspired by the Air France-KLM merger, which is expected to spur consolidation of the Northwest-KLM and SkyTeam alliances into a single...

This paper offers the first formal economic analysis of carve-outs under airline antitrust im- munity. Carve-outs are designed to limit the potential anticompetitive effects of cooperation by alliance partners in hub-to-hub markets, where they provide overlapping nonstop service. While the paper...

In this paper, we ask how antitrust immunity subject to a carve-out affects collusion incentives in international airline alliances. We show that the gains from economies of density due to higher interline traffic under the alliance strengthen the incentive to collude on the interhub segment,...

This paper explores the effect of airline emissions charges on airfares, airline service quality, aircraft design features, and network structure, using a detailed and realistic theoretical model of competing duopoly airlines. These impacts are derived by analyzing the effects of an increase in...