Multimarket Contact and Profitability Implications for US Airlines

Abstract Routine industrial analyses use internal market characteristics such as market shares to proxy for market power. However, recent studies argue that factors that are external to the market such as contact across multiple markets can be linked to tacit collusion. Using a structural demand and supply model for air travel, we quantify the variable profit effects of multimarket contact. We find that multimarket contact results in increases in variable profits ranging between $15,000 and $20,000 per contact in a quarter. Extrapolating this estimate across all contacts proves to be quite sizeable. These positive responses in profitability are especially stronger in less competitive markets. Our results, taken together, lend support to the mutual forbearance hypothesis.