• Business Versus Leisure Passengers. In general,
all else being equal, business travellers are less
sensitive to travel price changes (less elastic) than
leisure travellers. Intuitively, this result is plausible;
business travellers generally have less flexibility to
postpone or cancel their travel than leisure travellers.
Nevertheless, the studies do show that even business
travel will decline in the face of price increases, albeit
not to the same extent as leisure travel.
• Short-Haul Versus Long-Haul Travel. Another
consistent result was that air travel price elasticities
on short-haul routes were generally higher than on
long-haul routes. In part, this reflects the opportunity
for inter-modal substitution on short-haul routes (e.g.
travellers can switch to rail or car in response to air
travel price increases).