Seminar Series

2021 - 2022

Speaker: Miguel Udanoz (TBS).

Title: “Airlines' Cooperation in US Domestic Markets:

the Evolution of Price Gaps”

joint with Raquel Sampaio (U Rio Grande do Norte).

Date: Thursday, April 21th at 12h30 (Paris Time).

Abstract: Cooperation agreements between airlines is a widespread phenomenon in the air travel industry. This study focuses on the effect of alliances and codesharing on air tickets prices for the US domestic market. Our main goal is to check how price differentials of allied and codeshared products evolved over the years, based on an empirical model of average fares with market fixed effects with data from 2003 to 2019. Our evidence highlights a gradual change of fare gaps patterns over the past two decades. Specifically, we document that cooperation has drastically decreased in the US domestic markets between 2009 and 2019. We also show that price differentials between cooperated and non-cooperated products depend on the time period, on the level of cooperation and on the type of route, casting doubt on its pricing benefits to consumers. During the seminar I will present the main results of the article as well as a potential and preliminary extension we just started about how a conflict among online travel agents and airlines could explain part of the observed changes.

You are cordially invited to participate to the seminar, which will take place in Room 327, Lascrosses building. For those who will not be in the room, please find the zoom link below:

https://tbs-education-fr.zoom.us/j/83309079910?pwd=d3BWTFh2K1kvSXNNRkNpZmhPSGQwdz09

For more information, please contact: Pierre Mella-Barral p.mella-barral@tbs-education.fr