The Effect of Domestic Air Travel on the Spread of COVID-19 in the U.S

Jeffrey Prince and Daniel H. Simon

Applied Economics Letters, 2024, vol. 31, issue 11, 992-995

Abstract: We examine the relationship between passengers arriving from COVID-19 hotspots during the early period of the pandemic and the number of COVID-19 cases or deaths in a MSA during the first wave of the pandemic in the U.S. To do so, we link airline passenger flows with COVID-19 infection and mortality data. We control for MSA-level population and demographic data. We examine infection and mortality rates in MSAs receiving more versus fewer airline passengers from four early COVID-19 hotspots: New York City, Boston, Detroit, and New Orleans. We then compare the effect of airline passengers from these four hotspots with the effect of airline passengers from a set of eight cities with similar numbers of departing airline passengers. We find no evidence that passengers arriving from four early COVID-19 hotspots are positively correlated with local COVID-19 infection and death rates. More broadly, we find no evidence that passenger arrivals from COVID-19 hotspots increased the early spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. Our results indicate that banning domestic air travel may do little to slow the spread of infections.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2022.2161984

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