Pricing for sustainability: Analysing the demand-side steering effect of a flight ticket levy

The aviation industry is responsible for a large proportion of CO2 emissions in Switzerland. For this reason, the Swiss parliament planned to introduce a flight ticket levy, with the aim of reducing the demand for flights in Switzerland and thus the CO2 emissions of commercial aviation. However, critics have often argued that travellers would circumvent this measure by using foreign departure airports. Through a choice-based conjoint analysis, this master’s thesis analyses the effect of a flight ticket levy on the airport choice behaviour of Swiss citizens for short-haul flights. The study demonstrates that a flight ticket levy as it has been planned by the Swiss government would only marginally influence the demand behaviour of Swiss citizens. A flight ticket levy of a sufficient amount would rather lead to a decrease in passengers than to environmentally harmful evasive behaviour.