The Impact of the Digital Markets Act on Google Flights

Louis Pape, Gustavo Fróes Do Vale, Daniel Andrade Carmo, Carolina Brandão Farinha Baeta, Antony Guilherme Costa Do Amaral and Rafaela de Carvalho Machado Pinheiro
Additional contact information
Louis Pape: ECO-Télécom Paris - Equipe Eco Economie - CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: We quantify the impact of the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) on online search and traffic flows towards Google Flights. Relying on a difference-in-differences design to compare EU to European non-EU countries between January 2023 and December 2024, we find that Google Flights experienced a 30% decline in total visits and a 42% drop in unique visitors resulting from a DMA-induced design change to Google Search. This design change did not foster more search queries for google flights, suggesting its popularity rested on its preferential treatment within Google's search results. These findings suggest pro-competitive effects of the DMA and imply an opportunity for Online Travel Agencies, and in particular airline ticket sellers, to attract these previously captive consumers through further investments in SEO and brand equity.

Date: 2026-03-27
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05565052v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-05565052v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05565052

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().