Estimating the price elasticity of demand for air transport is essential to understand how demand responds to price variations and thus propose appropriate public policies and business strategies oriented toward this sector’s sustainability in its triple aspect (economic, environmental and social). This paper aims to provide a robust quantification of the price elasticity of demand for air travel on U.S. domestic routes using quarterly data from 1996:1 to 2021:4 on these routes from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' Airline Origin and Destination Survey. Four different samples are analyzed to ensure consistency of the estimates obtained. The estimation method and the origin of the price changes are the main contributions of this research. Estimation is conducted using a quasi-experimental method to ensure that the supply curve shifts on a stable demand curve and that measuring the response of demand to price changes enables predictions about the demand for air travel. Although previous studies have addressed this issue, this research analyses a different situation, with flexible and changing prices, in which the change in supply is due to the decisions of the companies operating in the market rather than generated by public policies and rigid pricing environments (fixed fares). An analysis of airline supply shifts is added for the selected periods and routes. The estimation shows that the demand for passenger airline seats in the analyzed context is inelastic in the lower range but within the interval of most of the estimates found in the literature.

估计航空运输需求的价格弹性对于了解需求如何响应价格变化至关重要，从而提出针对该行业三重方面（经济、环境和社会）可持续性的适当公共政策和商业战略。本文旨在利用美国运输统计局航空公司始发地和目的地调查中 1996 年 1 月至 2021 年 4 月期间这些航线的季度数据，对美国国内航线航空旅行需求的价格弹性进行可靠的量化。分析四个不同的样本以确保获得的估计值的一致性。估计方法和价格变化的根源是本研究的主要贡献。使用准实验方法进行估计，以确保供给曲线在稳定的需求曲线上移动，并且测量需求对价格变化的响应可以预测航空旅行的需求。尽管之前的研究已经解决了这个问题，但本研究分析了一种不同的情况，在价格灵活且变化的情况下，供给的变化是由于在市场上运营的公司的决策造成的，而不是由公共政策和刚性的定价环境产生的。固定票价）。添加了针对选定时段和航线的航空公司供应变化分析。估计表明，在分析背景下，客运航空公司座位的需求在较低范围内缺乏弹性，但在文献中大多数估计的区间内。