American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Network Effects, Congestion Externalities, and Air Traffic Delays: Or Why Not All Delays Are Evil
American Economic Review
vol. 93,
no. 4, September 2003
(pp. 1194–1215)
Abstract
We examine two factors that explain air traffic congestion: network benefits due to hubbing and congestion externalities. While both factors impact congestion, we find that the hubbing effect dominates empirically. Hub carriers incur most of the additional travel time from hubbing, primarily because they cluster their flights in short time spans to provide passengers as many potential connections as possible with a minimum of waiting time. Non-hub flights at the same hub airports operate with minimal additional travel time. These results suggest that an optimal congestion tax might have a relatively small impact on flight patterns at hub airports. (JEL L2, L5, L9, D6)Citation
Mayer, Christopher, and Todd Sinai. 2003. "Network Effects, Congestion Externalities, and Air Traffic Delays: Or Why Not All Delays Are Evil." American Economic Review, 93 (4): 1194–1215. DOI: 10.1257/000282803769206269JEL Classification
- L93 Air Transportation
- L14 Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation; Networks
- R41 Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise