The Impact of Carry-On Baggage Fee and the Differential Burden on Regional Airlines

Abstract

In 2010, Spirit airlines announced that it would start charging passengers for carry-on baggage. Using a vector of route level characteristics, we construct a matched group consisting of routes which best match those served by Spirit (treated group). We then run a diff-in-diff estimation using the treated and matched group, and examine the impact of Spirit's baggage fee policy on its rivals' ticket prices. Our results show that Spirit's rivals reduce their prices by about 5.8% after Spirit charges carry-on baggage fee. Looking into potentially heterogeneous impacts, we find that the policy impact is smaller on low-cost carriers relative to legacy carriers. We also take into account subcontracting status. Relative to non-subcontracting carriers, those which subcontract operations to regional carriers reduce their prices further by more than 10%, including average price (linear or log) and various points on the price distribution. We also develop a stylized theory model to help better understand our empirical findings.