Essays on airport and airway congestion

Runway and airspace congestion are the primary causes of flight delays in the US. These delays cost airlines and airline customers billions of dollars per year. This thesis consists of two essays. The first essay focuses on several of the commonly proposed market-based solutions to airport congestion. Most of the literature on these market-based solutions has assumed that these remedies are justified by welfare economics, but there is relatively little focus on these justifications. We explore the economic arguments for and against using various market-based approaches to treating airport congestion. The second essay examines the relationship between aviation infrastructure pricing and congestion. Aviation taxes (and some airport fees) are currently designed to tax large aircraft more than small aircraft and flights with more passengers more than flights with few passengers. Several authors have argued that these taxes and fees create an incentive system for airlines to use small aircraft with high frequency, which exacerbates the congestion problem. We study this effect by developing a game theoretic model of airline behavior.