The impact of the NAO index on European Airline Transit

Climatic variability and a substantial fraction of the most recent temperature warming in the Northern Hemisphere can be accounted for by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index. The most pronounced anomalies have occurred since the winter of 1989, with significant implications on weather conditions in areas within the index's geographical scope. Because climate is one of the most important factors in explaining world movements by humans, in this paper, variability patterns between quarterly Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK), compiled by the European Airline Association, and the NAO index are investigated as a function of different time lags and diverse economic indicators, with the aim of evaluating the impact of NAO variability and trends that can be associated with the change in RPK since the nineties. Using a traditional international air travel demand model, it has been found that the dissociation of the NAO index into positive and negative fluctuations can be related to changes in different geographical RPK time series, once seasonal effects are removed. The results are consistent with the view that meteorological and climate conditions can act as both a pull and push factor.