IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i2p885-d1322856.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competing with Low Cost Carrier in a Sustainable Environment: Airline Ticket Pricing, Carbon Trading, and Market Power Structure

Author

Listed:
  • Peng Du

    (Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
    School of Management, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China)

  • Lei Xu

    (Economics and Management College, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, China)

  • Rou Luo

    (Economics and Management College, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, China)

  • Mingzhu Hou

    (School of Management, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China)

Abstract

As the aviation industry embraces the carbon trading market, the competition between full-service carriers and low-cost carriers in ticket pricing is becoming more complicated and worth studying. To this end, we introduce carbon trading into game theoretical models under different market power structures and use real data from China Eastern Airlines and Spring Airlines on the route from Sanya to Shanghai to study this problem. This differs from the existing literature as empirical research is mainly used in this field. Our main results show that the disparity in market power (Stackelberg game) alleviates competition intensity under carbon trading and leads to higher equilibrium prices than in the Nash game model. Meanwhile, even when the two airlines have similar market power, Spring Airlines still has incentives to voluntarily act as a follower of China Eastern Airlines instead of maintaining equal market power with China Eastern Airlines. Under mild regulation, the uplift of carbon prices promotes higher equilibrium prices and supports larger profits. For the sake of consumer welfare, this suggests that the regulation department should impose stricter regulations and grant subsidies to motivate the airlines to mitigate emissions by introducing clean technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Peng Du & Lei Xu & Rou Luo & Mingzhu Hou, 2024. "Competing with Low Cost Carrier in a Sustainable Environment: Airline Ticket Pricing, Carbon Trading, and Market Power Structure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:885-:d:1322856
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/2/885/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/2/885/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diego Escobari & Nicholas G. Rupp & Joseph Meskey, 2019. "An Analysis of Dynamic Price Discrimination in Airlines," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(3), pages 639-662, January.
    2. John Kwoka & Kevin Hearle & Phillippe Alepin, 2016. "From the Fringe to the Forefront: Low Cost Carriers and Airline Price Determination," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(3), pages 247-268, May.
    3. Kevin R. Williams, 2022. "The Welfare Effects of Dynamic Pricing: Evidence From Airline Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 831-858, March.
    4. Varella, Rafael R. & Frazão, Jessica & Oliveira, Alessandro V.M., 2017. "Dynamic pricing and market segmentation responses to low-cost carrier entry," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 151-170.
    5. Kerry M. Tan, 2018. "Outsourcing and Price Competition: An Empirical Analysis of the Partnerships Between Legacy Carriers and Regional Airlines," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 53(2), pages 275-294, September.
    6. Jiuh-Biing Sheu & Fang Li, 2014. "Market Competition and Greening Transportation of Airlines Under the Emission Trading Scheme: A Case of Duopoly Market," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(4), pages 684-694, November.
    7. Wang, Kun & Zhang, Anming & Zhang, Yahua, 2018. "Key determinants of airline pricing and air travel demand in China and India: Policy, ownership, and LCC competition," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 80-89.
    8. Michael D. Wittman & Peter P. Belobaba, 2018. "Customized dynamic pricing of airline fare products," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(2), pages 78-90, April.
    9. Álvarez-SanJaime, Óscar & Cantos-Sanchez, Pedro & Moner-Colonques, Rafael & Sempere-Monerris, Jose J., 2020. "Pricing and infrastructure fees in shaping cooperation in a model of high-speed rail and airline competition," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 22-41.
    10. Pagoni, Ioanna & Psaraki-Kalouptsidi, Voula, 2016. "The impact of carbon emission fees on passenger demand and air fares: A game theoretic approach," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 41-51.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gaggero, Alberto A. & Luttmann, Alexander, 2023. "The determinants of hidden-city ticketing: Competition, hub-and-spoke networks, and advance-purchase requirements," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    2. Brad Shrago, 2024. "The Spirit Effect: Ultra-Low Cost Carriers and Fare Dispersion in the U.S. Airline Industry," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 64(4), pages 549-579, June.
    3. Li, Yongling & Wang, Jiaoe & Huang, Jie & Chen, Zhuo, 2022. "Impact of COVID-19 on domestic air transportation in China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 95-103.
    4. Fukushi, Mitsuyoshi & Delgado, Felipe & Raveau, Sebastián & Santos, Bruno F., 2022. "CHAIRS: A choice-based air transport simulator applied to airline competition and revenue management," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 297-315.
    5. Luttmann, Alexander & Gaggero, Alberto A, 2020. "Purchase discounts and travel premiums during holiday periods: Evidence from the airline industry," MPRA Paper 104863, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Yue, Xuanyu & Byrne, Julie, 2024. "Identifying the determinants of carbon emissions of individual airlines around the world," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    7. Wang, Yixiao & Pels, Eric & Teunter, Ruud H. & Sun, Luoyi & Wu, Jianhong, 2023. "Railway liberalization, airport congestion toll, and infrastructure pricing: Modelling and numerical analysis for European and Chinese markets," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    8. Zuidberg, Joost, 2019. "Network geographies and financial performances in low-cost carrier versus network carrier competition: The case of Norwegian versus SAS," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1-1.
    9. Kerry M. Tan, 2018. "Outsourcing and Price Competition: An Empirical Analysis of the Partnerships Between Legacy Carriers and Regional Airlines," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 53(2), pages 275-294, September.
    10. Zhang, Rui & Johnson, Daniel & Zhao, Weiming & Nash, Chris, 2019. "Competition of airline and high-speed rail in terms of price and frequency: Empirical study from China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 8-18.
    11. Wang, Kun & Xia, Wenyi & Zhang, Anming & Zhang, Qiong, 2018. "Effects of train speed on airline demand and price: Theory and empirical evidence from a natural experiment," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 99-130.
    12. Thommen, Christoph & Hintermann, Beat, 2023. "Price versus Commitment: Managing the demand for off-peak train tickets in a field experiment," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    13. Rodrigo V. Ventura & Manoela Cabo & Rafael Caixeta & Elton Fernandes & Vicente Aprigliano Fernandes, 2020. "Air Transportation Income and Price Elasticities in Remote Areas: The Case of the Brazilian Amazon Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-18, July.
    14. Sahar Validi & Arijit Bhattacharya & P. J. Byrne, 2020. "Sustainable distribution system design: a two-phase DoE-guided meta-heuristic solution approach for a three-echelon bi-objective AHP-integrated location-routing model," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 290(1), pages 191-222, July.
    15. Shrago, Brad, 2022. "The spatial effects of entry on airfares in the U.S. airline industry," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    16. Yang, Hangjun & Ma, Wenliang & Wang, Qiang & Wang, Kun & Zhang, Yahua, 2020. "Welfare implications for air passengers in China in the era of high-speed rail," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 1-13.
    17. Chen, Lu & Li, Yong-Quan & Liu, Chih-Hsing, 2019. "How airline service quality determines the quantity of repurchase intention - Mediate and moderate effects of brand quality and perceived value," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 185-197.
    18. Alavi Fard, Farzad & Sy, Malick & Ivanov, Dmitry, 2019. "Optimal overbooking strategies in the airlines using dynamic programming approach in continuous time," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 384-399.
    19. DHaultfoeuille, Xavier & Wang, Ao & Fevrier, Philippe & Wilner, Lionel, 2022. "Estimating the Gains (and Losses) of Revenue Management," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 621, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    20. Yanbin Long & Peter Belobaba, 2024. "Airline revenue management with segmented continuous pricing: methods and competitive effects," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(1), pages 14-27, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:885-:d:1322856. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.