IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/retrec/v78y2019ics0739885919302537.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing of imperfect substitutes: The next flight is not the same flight

Author

Listed:
  • van den Bogaard, Julien E.
  • Lijesen, Mark G.

Abstract

We investigate how airfares respond to changes in the fare of adjacent flights. Using a fixed effects regression on fares from Amsterdam to Geneva, we find flights that only differ in departure times to be weak substitutes. Fare-to-fare elasticities for imperfect substitute flights of different airlines are even smaller, implying weak competition between airlines on this specific route.

Suggested Citation

  • van den Bogaard, Julien E. & Lijesen, Mark G., 2019. "Pricing of imperfect substitutes: The next flight is not the same flight," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:retrec:v:78:y:2019:i:c:s0739885919302537
    DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2019.100741
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0739885919302537
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.retrec.2019.100741?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bilotkach, Volodymyr & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Talavera, Oleksandr, 2010. "Are airlines' price-setting strategies different?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 1-6.
    2. Borenstein, Severin & Netz, Janet, 1999. "Why do all the flights leave at 8 am?: Competition and departure-time differentiation in airline markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 611-640, July.
    3. Joanna Stavins, 2001. "Price Discrimination in the Airline Market: The Effect of Market Concentration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 200-202, February.
    4. Lijesen, Mark G., 2004. "Adjusting the Herfindahl index for close substitutes: an application to pricing in civil aviation," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 123-134, March.
    5. Enrico Bachis & Claudio A. Piga, 2006. "Hub Premium, Airport Dominance and Market Power in the European Airline Industry," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 96(5), pages 11-54, September.
    6. Marco Alderighi & Marcella Nicolini & Claudio A. Piga, 2015. "Combined Effects of Capacity and Time on Fares: Insights from the Yield Management of a Low-Cost Airline," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(4), pages 900-915, October.
    7. Ishii, Jun & Jun, Sunyoung & Van Dender, Kurt, 2009. "Air travel choices in multi-airport markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 216-227, March.
    8. Alberto A. Gaggero & Claudio A. Piga, 2011. "Airline Market Power and Intertemporal Price Dispersion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 552-577, December.
    9. Borenstein, Severin & Rose, Nancy L, 1994. "Competition and Price Dispersion in the U.S. Airline Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 653-683, August.
    10. Salvanes, Kjell G. & Steen, Frode & Sorgard, Lars, 2005. "Hotelling in the air? Flight departures in Norway," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 193-213, March.
    11. Mian Dai & Qihong Liu & Konstantinos Serfes, 2014. "Is the Effect of Competition on Price Dispersion Nonmonotonic? Evidence from the U.S. Airline Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 161-170, March.
    12. Lijesen, Mark & Behrens, Christiaan, 2017. "The spatial scope of airline competition," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-13.
    13. Basso, Leonardo J., 2008. "Airport deregulation: Effects on pricing and capacity," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 1015-1031, July.
    14. Kristopher S. Gerardi & Adam Hale Shapiro, 2009. "Does Competition Reduce Price Dispersion? New Evidence from the Airline Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37, February.
    15. Pels, Eric & Rietveld, Piet, 2004. "Airline pricing behaviour in the London–Paris market," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 277-281.
    16. Pels, Eric & Nijkamp, Peter & Rietveld, Piet, 2000. "Airport and Airline Competition for Passengers Departing from a Large Metropolitan Area," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 29-45, July.
    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. Yannis Kerkemezos & Bas Karreman, 2020. "On the Benefits of Being Alone: Scheduling Changes, Intensity of Competition and Dynamic Airline Pricing," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-042/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. 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.
    3. Mantin, Benny & Rubin, Eran, 2018. "Price volatility and market performance measures: The case of revenue managed goods," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 35-50.
    4. 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.
    5. Escobari, Diego & Rupp, Nicholas & Meskey, Joseph, 2018. "Dynamic Price Discrimination in Airlines," MPRA Paper 88078, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Morlotti, Chiara & Redondi, Renato, 2023. "The impact of COVID-19 on airlines’ price curves," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    7. Puller, Steven L. & Taylor, Lisa M., 2012. "Price discrimination by day-of-week of purchase: Evidence from the U.S. airline industry," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 801-812.
    8. Siegert, Caspar & Ulbricht, Robert, 2020. "Dynamic oligopoly pricing: Evidence from the airline industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Tomasz Stanisław Szopiński & Robert Nowacki, 2015. "The Influence of Purchase Date and Flight Duration over the Dispersion of Airline Ticket Prices," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 9(3), September.
    10. Luttmann, Alexander & Gaggero, Alberto A, 2022. "How does COVID-19 affect intertemporal price dispersion? Evidence from the airline industry," MPRA Paper 111797, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Myongjin Kim & Leilei Shen & Qi Ge, 2023. "Does Competition Increase or Decrease Price Dispersion? Insights from One‐Way vs. Round‐Trip Airfares," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(2), pages 435-455, April.
    12. Huang, Zhibin & Yong, Jianming & Ma, Wenliang & Chen, Mengying & Xiong, Zihan & Shrestha, Anup, 2022. "Internet penetration and airline pricing: Evidence from China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 104-111.
    13. Vigren, Andreas, 2016. "Competition in Swedish passenger railway : entry in an open-access market," Working papers in Transport Economics 2016:18, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    14. Roma, Paolo & Zambuto, Fabio & Perrone, Giovanni, 2014. "Price dispersion, competition, and the role of online travel agents: Evidence from business routes in the Italian airline market," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 146-159.
    15. Alderighi, Marco & Gaggero, Alberto A. & Piga, Claudio A., 2022. "Hidden prices with fixed inventory: Evidence from the airline industry," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 42-61.
    16. Hidalgo-Gallego, Soraya & Mateo-Mantecón, Ingrid, 2019. "Effect of concentration in airline market on Spanish airport technical efficiency," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 56-66.
    17. Lewis, Matthew S., 2021. "Identifying airline price discrimination and the effect of competition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    18. Howell, Charles & Grifell-Tatjé, Emili, 2022. "Market heterogeneity and the relationship between competition and price dispersion: Evidence from the U.S. airline market," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 218-230.
    19. Escobari, Diego, 2017. "Airport, airline and departure time choice and substitution patterns: An empirical analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 198-210.
    20. Angela Stefania Bergantino & Claudia Capozza, 2015. "Airline Pricing Behavior Under Limited Inter‐Modal Competition," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 700-713, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Imperfect substitutes; Pricing; Airlines; Product differentiation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L93 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Air Transportation

    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:eee:retrec:v:78:y:2019:i:c:s0739885919302537. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620614/description#description .

    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.