The on-time performance effects of a policy change in airport slot restrictions: A synthetic control analysis

Abstract

This study examines the on-time performance (OTP) effects of the 2016 Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to remove takeoff and landing limits at Newark Liberty Airport. Using the synthetic control method, we compare Newark Liberty’s OTP to that of a weighted collection of comparable airports in the United States. Exploiting the regulatory change as a credibly exogenous shock to arrival OTP, we find that arrival delay minutes increased by up to 23 min from an average of 8 min, while the share of late-arriving flights increased by up to 14 percentage points. These results are robust to other measures of arrival OTP.