Price discrimination and concentration in European airline markets

This article deals with the relationship between price discrimination and concentration in intra-European routes. Data on ticket prices of all flights from Nice Airport (France) to European destinations is used. The objective is to analyze how price discrimination is affected by concentration. Ticket restrictions are used as proxies for price discrimination. It is shown that concentration measured by the inequality of market shares affects the sensitivity of airline prices to purchase restrictions positively, meaning that concentration and price discrimination are negatively related.