Air travel during times of crisis: The role of social preferences and uncertainty

This paper investigates the role of social preferences and uncertainty for air travel demand, by linking experimentally validated measures of social preferences and uncertainty index to passenger data for 36 European countries from 2019 to 2022. The empirical analysis separates the effects of government restrictions from that of social preferences, while considering the impact of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic event. The results highlight the importance of accounting for the individuals’ social preferences when implementing aviation-related policy measures. The findings also reveal that uncertainty can trigger unexpected behaviour from the passengers, resulting in the ineffectiveness of public policies during times of crisis.