Scenarios Events for The Airline Game.

Several scenarios are available. Here are some of the events that may appear (on demand) during a session of The Airline Game:

Demand booms and crisis

Unexpected demand booms and crisis starting at the beginning of a year (after the flight choice).

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Air transport liberalization

Routes over which only a few airlines could previously operate are opened to every airline (implying multiplication of hub costs).

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Congested airports and the grandfather rule

Some airports become congested. Before planning a flight, it becomes necessary to get a landing and a take-off slot on these airports (slot allocation is based on asymmetric historical rights and administrative allocation).

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Avoidable Fixed Cost Increase

To try to reduce congestion, a new avoidable fixed cost/tax is created on each route over which an airline operates

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Setting up a posted price for the airport slots

A posted price for airport slots is set up.

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Auctions for airport slots

The posted price for airport slots is removed. Slots which were not fully used the previous year are now sold through auctions.

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Relaxing the capacity constraint with a new aircraft

A larger aircraft becomes available.

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


CO2 taxes

Taxes based on CO2 emissions are introduced in the game. Variant: they are replaced by a subsidy for pollution reduction.

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


EU-ETS, Introduction of tradable CO2 emission permits

CO2 taxes/subsidies are removed and tradable CO2 emissions permits are introduced. In particular, the scenario studies the impact of the initial allocation method and of the permits price on fleet choice, ticket prices and airlines' profits.

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Mergers, Takeovers and Bankruptcy

At some point in the game, mergers and takeovers become possible. Either through an (score sharing) agreement between firms or through an hostile takeover. At the end of the game, airlines can also go bankrupt.

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Collusion investigations

At the beginning of the game, settings are calibrated to enable comparing monopoly and oligopoly profits. Later in the game, if some players set up a cartel, factors progressively make collusion harder to sustain. At some point, if some predefinite criteria are verified, collusion investigations are launched which may ultimately lead to trials.

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event:


Bargaining with manufacturers

The trainer or some of the players are now acting as aircraft manufacturers, and bargain with the airlines at the beginning of the year.

Theoretic comments (or lectures) that may accompany this event: