***Note: Venue changed to Pick Hall 022!***
Join us for a Lunch & Learn with Daniel Palmer as he presents his research.
Lunch is provided.
Abstract
Premium air travel – driven by demand from upper income households – faces increasing scrutiny given its disproportionately large carbon footprint. This footprint, existing discourse suggests, is driven by the increased space and amenities typically found in premium cabins. One increasingly popular solution to abate these emissions is to disincentivize or prohibit premium air travel in its entirety, favoring instead all-economy cabins. What might the impact of such a policy be? We address this question by leveraging an empirical model that integrates cabin configuration data, fuel burn profiles across various aircraft types, and airfares for over 12,000 flights. Our findings are threefold. First, we find that removing premium cabins in their entirety can reduce per-passenger emissions by between 8.1 percent and 21.5 percent, depending on the type of aircraft and aircraft stage length. Second, we observe that on a per- flight and lifespan basis, removing premium cabins offers far fewer, if any, reductions in emissions. Our estimates suggest that all-economy flights can reduce emissions by 0.45 percent or increase emissions by up to 1.43 percent on a life-cycle basis. Third, we ascertain that all-economy configurations reduce aggregate airline revenue by between 4.92 percent and 23.1 percent. Given these reductions, maintaining baseline revenue requires a 6 percent to 30 percent increase in airfare ticket prices, which levies a greater cost burden on working-class travelers. We conclude that foregoing premium cabins may fail to adequately reduce aggregate emissions while hindering air travel accessibility via higher airfares.