 Systematic peak-load pricing during holiday periods: Evidence from the U.S. airline industryAlberto Gaggero and Alexander Luttmann Economics of Transportation, 2025, vol. 41, issue C Abstract: When faced with capacity constraints, firms may moderate demand by increasing prices when demand is known to be high ex-ante (i.e., systematic peak-load pricing). In this article, we examine the extent and duration of systematic peak-load pricing in the days surrounding public holidays in the U.S. airline industry. Applying two-stage least squares techniques to a unique panel of over 18 million fares, we estimate travel premiums ranging from 4.3% to 83.1% in the days surrounding national holidays and from 2.7% to 34.7% in the days surrounding federal holidays. We also find that the duration of the peak-travel period is longer for national holidays and shorter for federal holidays. Examining heterogeneity in holiday peak-load pricing, we find some evidence that travel premiums during national holidays are larger on longer-distance routes, on routes to or from slot-controlled airports, on routes to leisure destinations, and on ultra-low-cost carriers. Keywords: Advance-purchase discounts; Airline pricing; Price discrimination; Systematic peak-load pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecotra:v:41:y:2025:i:c:s2212012225000036 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecotra.2025.100395 Access Statistics for this article Economics of Transportation is currently edited by Mogens Fosgerau and Erik Verhoef More articles in Economics of Transportation from Elsevier |
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