The impacts of airline corporate social responsibility in the air transport industry

Abstract

This paper investigates the implications of airline corporate social responsibility (CSR) uptake in the air transport industry. Then, we extend the analysis considering the impact of parallel airline alliances on CSR of airlines. The results suggest that airports play a crucial role in shaping the CSR practices of airlines and that this impact should be viewed in the context of a network in the downstream market. When an airline adopts CSR, it can lead to an increase in social welfare and consumer surplus if the degree of substitutability of services provided by the airline and its parallel alliance is high enough.