Price Discrimination in Airline Tickets

Using unique transaction data, we compare tickets on the same airline and route that are purchased on different days of the week, after controlling for the day of week of travel, the ticket restrictions, the demand characteristics of the flights, and the number of days in advance that the ticket is purchased. We find that fares are 5% lower when purchased on the weekend. We conjecture that this is a form of price discrimination. If airlines believe that weekend purchasers are more likely to be price-elastic leisure travelers, then they may offer lower prices on weekends when the mix of purchasing customers makes demand more price elastic.

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