The Impact of Passenger Mix on Reported “Hub Premiums” in the U.S. Airline Industry

This paper analyzes U.S. airline price and passenger data disaggregated at the fare class level for the year 2000. We find that although average prices to and from most airlines' hubs tend to be higher than those throughout the remainder of their systems, much of the difference can be explained by passenger mix (i.e., the proportion of leisure versus business passengers). Our results suggest, therefore, that many of the reported “hub premiums” in the previous literature may be overstated.