Decarbonizing Air Transport: Insights from a Quasi-Experiment

Megersa Abera Abate, Alessandro Barattieri, Alberto Brugnoli and Flavio Porta

No 11183, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The US-China direct flights in mid-2023 were only 7 percent of those available in mid-2019. This quasi-experiment informs the debate on air transport de-carbonization. An estimated structural model shows that re-establishing the pre-pandemic direct connectivity could increase passengers by 387 percent and reduce prices by 63 percent. Moreover, due to the suppression of flights, carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 80 percent. A counterfactual exercise shows that maintaining pre-COVID connectivity and achieving the same emissions reduction through a market mechanism (i.e. offsetting), would have resulted in more passengers (+365 percent), lower prices (-60 percent), and lower reduction in consumer surplus (-40 percent) than observed in the post COVID-19 equilibrium.

Date: 2025-08-11
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