Modeling aggregate air-travel itinerary shares: logit model development at a major US airline

This study reports the results of aggregate air-travel itinerary share models estimated at the city-pair level for all city-pairs in the US. These models determine the factors that influence airline ridership at the itinerary level and support carrier decision-making. The models are estimated using aggregate multinomial logit methodology and use comprehensive data. Independent variables for the models measure various itinerary service characteristics: level-of-service, connection quality, carrier, carrier market presence, fares, aircraft size and type, and time of day. The results are intuitive, and validation tests indicate that the models outperform existing methods. Finally, the impacts of changing various itinerary service attributes on carrier market share are discussed. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.