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Introduction to the special issue on “Airlines and Airports”
Economics of Transportation ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Economics of Transportation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecotra
Editorial
Introduction to the special issue on “Airlines and Airports” Welcome to the Economics of Transportation special issue on “Airlines and Airports.” The issue contains a range of contributions to the literatures on airline and airport economics, which should be of interest to researchers working in these areas. The paper by Lee and Singer is not a traditional transportation-economics piece but deals with a major labor-economics issue in the airline industry: the integration of pilot seniority lists following a merger. The paper derives an “impossibility theorem” showing that seniority integration cannot simultaneously satisfy two common fairness criteria, and it proposes a hybrid method that blends both criteria. The paper by Daniel is one of the first formal analyses of the optimal structure of an airport landing-slot system, showing how slot windows should be structured. The paper by Fukui and Nagata studies the effect of the US tarmac-delay rule on airline operations, demonstrating that airlines undergoing a tarmac-delay investigation under the rule were subsequently more likely to cancel flights. The paper by Teraji and Morimoto is the first attempt to analyze how competition between airports in setting airport charges affects airline network structure. It shows that airport competition may distort an airline's hub-location choice, reducing social welfare. The paper by Alcobendas builds a
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecotra.2014.03.002 2212-0122/& 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
structural econometric model to analyze the effect of airport charging schemes on airfares, flight frequencies, and aircraft sizes, using data from airports in the San Francisco Bay area. The paper by Greenfield revisits the connection between airline competition and flight delays, taking the endogeneity of competition into account. When instrumental variables are used in the estimation, a stronger beneficial effect of competition on delays emerges. The paper by Czerny and Zhang develops an airport congestion model where capacity is fixed and extra peak-period passengers are diverted to the off-peak period, exploring its properties. Finally, the paper by Brueckner and Luo, for which Co-Editor Mogens Fosgerau handled the review process, studies flight-frequency competition by estimating airline reaction functions, finding that flight frequencies are strategic complements. Jan K. Brueckner Department of Economics, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, United States Received 29 March 2014
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Economics of Transportation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecotra
Editorial
Introduction to the special issue on “Airlines and Airports” Welcome to the Economics of Transportation special issue on “Airlines and Airports.” The issue contains a range of contributions to the literatures on airline and airport economics, which should be of interest to researchers working in these areas. The paper by Lee and Singer is not a traditional transportation-economics piece but deals with a major labor-economics issue in the airline industry: the integration of pilot seniority lists following a merger. The paper derives an “impossibility theorem” showing that seniority integration cannot simultaneously satisfy two common fairness criteria, and it proposes a hybrid method that blends both criteria. The paper by Daniel is one of the first formal analyses of the optimal structure of an airport landing-slot system, showing how slot windows should be structured. The paper by Fukui and Nagata studies the effect of the US tarmac-delay rule on airline operations, demonstrating that airlines undergoing a tarmac-delay investigation under the rule were subsequently more likely to cancel flights. The paper by Teraji and Morimoto is the first attempt to analyze how competition between airports in setting airport charges affects airline network structure. It shows that airport competition may distort an airline's hub-location choice, reducing social welfare. The paper by Alcobendas builds a
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecotra.2014.03.002 2212-0122/& 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
structural econometric model to analyze the effect of airport charging schemes on airfares, flight frequencies, and aircraft sizes, using data from airports in the San Francisco Bay area. The paper by Greenfield revisits the connection between airline competition and flight delays, taking the endogeneity of competition into account. When instrumental variables are used in the estimation, a stronger beneficial effect of competition on delays emerges. The paper by Czerny and Zhang develops an airport congestion model where capacity is fixed and extra peak-period passengers are diverted to the off-peak period, exploring its properties. Finally, the paper by Brueckner and Luo, for which Co-Editor Mogens Fosgerau handled the review process, studies flight-frequency competition by estimating airline reaction functions, finding that flight frequencies are strategic complements. Jan K. Brueckner Department of Economics, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, United States Received 29 March 2014