IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20110179.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Pricing of Flights and Passengers at Congested Airports: The Efficiency of Atomistic Charges

Author

Listed:
  • Hugo E. Silva

    (VU University Amsterdam)

  • Erik T. Verhoef

    (VU University Amsterdam)

Abstract

This paper investigates optimal airport pricing when airlines provide imperfect substitutes products, and make decisions on capacity, scheduling and pricing. We show that the first-best toll per flight may be higher than the simple market-shares formulae that were recently derived for Cournot models, and approaches the atomistic toll (which ignores the airlines' internalization of self-imposed congestion) as products become closer substitutes. This increases the relevance of congestion pricing and does not require leadership behavior. We also find that an airport requires two pricing instruments to achieve the first-best outcome: per-passenger subsidies to counteract airlines' market power, and per-flight tolls to correct congestion externalities. We numerically analyze second-best policies of having only one tax instrument, as well as the performance of atomistic pricing, and find that the latter may offer a more attractive alternative than what is suggested by simpler Cournot models.

Suggested Citation

  • Hugo E. Silva & Erik T. Verhoef, 2011. "Optimal Pricing of Flights and Passengers at Congested Airports: The Efficiency of Atomistic Charges," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-179/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 28 Mar 2013.
  • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20110179
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/11179.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brueckner, Jan K. & Van Dender, Kurt, 2008. "Atomistic congestion tolls at concentrated airports? Seeking a unified view in the internalization debate," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 288-295, September.
    2. Perloff,Jeffrey M. & Karp,Larry S. & Golan,Amos, 2007. "Estimating Market Power and Strategies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521011143, October.
    3. Rupp, Nicholas G., 2009. "Do carriers internalize congestion costs? Empirical evidence on the internalization question," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 24-37, January.
    4. Brons, Martijn & Pels, Eric & Nijkamp, Peter & Rietveld, Piet, 2002. "Price elasticities of demand for passenger air travel: a meta-analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 165-175.
    5. Jan K. Brueckner, 2002. "Airport Congestion When Carriers Have Market Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1357-1375, December.
    6. Daniel, Joseph I. & Harback, Katherine Thomas, 2008. "(When) Do hub airlines internalize their self-imposed congestion delays?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 583-612, March.
    7. Basso, Leonardo J. & Zhang, Anming, 2010. "Pricing vs. slot policies when airport profits matter," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 381-391, March.
    8. Jan Brueckner & Ricardo Flores-Fillol, 2007. "Airline Schedule Competition," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 30(3), pages 161-177, May.
    9. Avinash Dixit, 1979. "A Model of Duopoly Suggesting a Theory of Entry Barriers," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 20-32, Spring.
    10. Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2003. "Network Effects, Congestion Externalities, and Air Traffic Delays: Or Why Not All Delays Are Evil," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1194-1215, September.
    11. Daniel, Joseph I, 1995. "Congestion Pricing and Capacity of Large Hub Airports: A Bottleneck Model with Stochastic Queues," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(2), pages 327-370, March.
    12. Flores-Fillol, Ricardo, 2010. "Congested hubs," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 358-370, March.
    13. Zhang, Anming & Zhang, Yimin, 2006. "Airport capacity and congestion when carriers have market power," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 229-247, September.
    14. Czerny, Achim I. & Zhang, Anming, 2011. "Airport congestion pricing and passenger types," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 595-604, March.
    15. Swan, William M. & Adler, Nicole, 2006. "Aircraft trip cost parameters: A function of stage length and seat capacity," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 105-115, March.
    16. Brueckner, Jan K., 2009. "Price vs. quantity-based approaches to airport congestion management," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 681-690, June.
    17. Thorsten Fischer & David R. Kamerschen, 2003. "Price-Cost Margins in the US Airline Industry using a Conjectural Variation Approach," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 37(2), pages 227-259, May.
    18. Basso, Leonardo J., 2008. "Airport deregulation: Effects on pricing and capacity," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 1015-1031, July.
    19. Steven A. Morrison & Clifford Winston, 2007. "Another Look at Airport Congestion Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1970-1977, December.
    20. David M. Kreps & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1983. "Quantity Precommitment and Bertrand Competition Yield Cournot Outcomes," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 326-337, Autumn.
    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. Silva, Hugo E. & Verhoef, Erik T., 2013. "Optimal pricing of flights and passengers at congested airports and the efficiency of atomistic charges," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 1-13.
    2. Zhang, Anming & Czerny, Achim I., 2012. "Airports and airlines economics and policy: An interpretive review of recent research," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 15-34.
    3. Gillen, David & Jacquillat, Alexandre & Odoni, Amedeo R., 2016. "Airport demand management: The operations research and economics perspectives and potential synergies," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 495-513.
    4. Silva, Hugo E. & Verhoef, Erik T. & van den Berg, Vincent A.C., 2014. "Airlines’ strategic interactions and airport pricing in a dynamic bottleneck model of congestion," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 13-27.
    5. Dixit, Aasheesh & Jakhar, Suresh Kumar, 2021. "Airport capacity management: A review and bibliometric analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    6. Achim I. Czerny & Anming Zhang, 2010. "Airport Congestion Pricing and Passenger Types," WHU Working Paper Series - Economics Group 10-01, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management.
    7. Jiang, Changmin & Zhang, Anming, 2015. "Airport congestion pricing and terminal investment: Effects of terminal congestion, passenger types, and concessionsAuthor-Name: Wan, Yulai," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 91-113.
    8. Czerny, Achim I. & Zhang, Anming, 2011. "Airport congestion pricing and passenger types," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 595-604, March.
    9. Czerny, Achim I. & Zhang, Anming, 2014. "Airport congestion pricing when airlines price discriminate," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 77-89.
    10. Achim I. Czerny, 2012. "Public Versus Private Airport Behavior When Concession Revenues Exist," WHU Working Paper Series - Economics Group 12-01, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management.
    11. Noto, Claudio, 2020. "Airport slots, secondary trading, and congestion pricing at an airport with a dominant network airline," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Fageda, Xavier & Flores-Fillol, Ricardo, 2016. "How do airlines react to airport congestion? The role of networks," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 73-81.
    13. Swaroop, Prem & Zou, Bo & Ball, Michael O. & Hansen, Mark, 2012. "Do more US airports need slot controls? A welfare based approach to determine slot levels," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 46(9), pages 1239-1259.
    14. Flores-Fillol, Ricardo, 2010. "Congested hubs," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 358-370, March.
    15. Achim I. Czerny, 2009. "Airport Pricing and Concession Revenues," WHU Working Paper Series - Economics Group 09-05, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management.
    16. Brueckner, Jan K., 2009. "Price vs. quantity-based approaches to airport congestion management," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 681-690, June.
    17. Czerny, Achim I. & Zhang, Anming, 2014. "Airport peak-load pricing revisited: The case of peak and uniform tolls," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 90-101.
    18. Czerny, Achim I., 2013. "Public versus private airport behavior when concession revenues exist," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 38-46.
    19. Ater, Itai, 2012. "Internalization of congestion at US hub airports," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 196-209.
    20. Barkley, Aaron & Mcleod, Kael, 2022. "Congestion and consolidation: An empirical study of a barge shipping merger," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Airport pricing; Congestion internalization; Atomistic tolls;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L93 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Air Transportation
    • R48 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government Pricing and Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tin:wpaper:20110179. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.html .

    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.