Environmental charges in airline markets

Over the last two decades many airline markets have been deregulated, resulting in increased competition and use of different types of networks. At the same time there has been an intense discussion on environmental taxation of airline traffic. It is likely that an optimal environmental charge and the effects of a charge differ between different types of aviation markets. In this paper, we derive optimal flight (environmental) charges for different types of airline markets. The first type of market is a multiproduct monopoly airline operating either a point-to-point network or a hub-and-spoke network. The optimal charge is shown to be similar in construction to an optimal charge for a monopolist. We also compare the environmental impact of the two types of networks. Given no differences in marginal damages between airports we find that an airline will always choose the network with the highest environmental damages. The second type of market we investigate is a multiproduct duopoly, where two airlines compete in both passengers and flights. The formulation of the optimal charge is similar to the optimal charge of a single product oligopoly. However, we also show that it is, because of strategic effects, difficult to determine the effects of the charge on the number of flights.