A panel analysis of change in personal air travel behaviour in England between 2012 and 2019

Decarbonizing aviation is challenging as few scalable technological alternatives exist, and travel activity is increasing rapidly. It is thus essential to better understand the drivers of air travel behaviour. Previous cross-sectional research has identified a range of factors associated with individual air travel frequency. There is, however, a lack of longitudinal studies identifying the factors associated with change in air travel frequency on the individual level. This is in contrast with research on daily travel and car use, where ‘mobility biographies’ studies have identified the life-course factors associated with travel behaviour change. Our study contributes to filling this gap. We investigate the determinants of change in air travel frequency using data from two waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (2012–2013 and 2018–2019), combined with geographical information at the neighbourhood level. With regression models, we assess the impact of changes in a wide range of factors including socio-demographic and economic situation; residential location; spatial dispersion of social networks; migration status; car ownership; and environmental attitudes. We find significant effects for several variables, including e.g., a negative effect of having children on air travel frequency, and a reduction in the number of flights in the first few years after migrating to the UK. We conclude by discussing how the findings can inform debates on: i) the impact of life-course events on travel behaviour; ii) the causal drivers of air travel frequency; iii) the drivers of air travel growth, and related implications in terms of inequality and ‘institutionalisation’ of air travel.