An airport level framework for examining the impact of COVID-19 on airline demand

In this study, we examine the influence of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on airline demand at the disaggregate resolution of airport. The primary focus of our proposed research effort is to develop a framework that provides a blueprint for airline demand recovery as COVID-19 cases evolve over time. Airline monthly demand data is sourced from Bureau of Transportation Statistics for 380 airports for 24 months from January 2019 through December 2020. The demand data is augmented with a host of independent variables including COVID-19 related factors, demographic characteristics and built environment characteristics at the county level, airport specific factors, spatial factors, temporal factors, and adjoining county attributes. The effect of COVID-19 related factors is identified by considering global and local COVID-19 transmission, temporal indicators of pandemic start and progress, and interactions of airline demand predictors with global and local COVID-19 indicators. Finally, we present a blueprint for airline demand recovery where we consider three hypothetical scenarios of COVID-19 transmission rates - expected, pessimistic and optimistic. The results at the airport level from these scenarios are aggregated at the state or regional level by adding the demand from all airports in the corresponding state or region. These trends are presented by State and Region to illustrate potential differences across various scenarios. The results highlight a potentially slow path to airline demand recovery until COVID-19 cases subside.