Flight Delays and Passenger Preferences: An Axiomatic Approach

C-Tier
Journal: Southern Economic Journal
Year: 2011
Volume: 77
Issue: 3
Pages: 543-556

Authors (3)

John A. Bishop (not in RePEc) Nicholas G. Rupp (East Carolina University) Buhong Zheng (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

0.335 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 0.5x C-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) defines a flight as “delayed” if it arrives 15+ minutes late. The DOT “flight counting” delay definition is used to rank airline/airport service quality. An obvious caveat of counting flight delays is that the duration of delay plays no role in the delay count. The purpose of this article is to propose an aggregate delay measure that is sensitive to the distribution of time delayed among passengers. The importance of this work is that our derived delay measure reflects passenger preferences rather than the arbitrary delay cutoff established by the DOT. We model passengers' preference ordering using the criteria that passengers prefer fewer, shorter, and more equal delay times.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:wly:soecon:v:77:y:2011:i:3:p:543-556
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-29