Estimating the impact of COVID-19 on air travel in the medium and long term using neural network and Monte Carlo simulation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2021.102126Get rights and content

Highlights

  • This paper aims at predicting domestic and international air travel.

  • Predictors include WEI, daily trips, COVID-19 variables, and travel restrictions.

  • Methodology: Neural network and Monte Carlo simulations.

  • Air travel is more sensitive to changes in WEI than COVID-19 variables.

  • It will take several years for air travel to return to normal.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on the airline industry. Air travel in the United States declined in 2020 with significantly lower domestic and international flights. The dynamic change and uncertainty in the trend of COVID-19 have made it difficult to predict future air travel. This paper aims at developing and testing neural network models that predict domestic and international air travel in the medium and long term based on residents' daily trips by distance, economic condition, COVID-19 severity, and travel restrictions. Data in the United States from various sources were used to train and validate the neural network models, and Monte Carlo simulations were constructed to predict air travel under uncertainty of the pandemic and economic growth. The results show that weekly economic index (WEI) is the most important predictor for air travel. Additionally, daily trips by distance play a more important role in the prediction of domestic air travel than the international one, while travel restrictions seem to have an impact on both. Sensitivity analysis results for four different scenarios indicate that air travel in the future is more sensitive to the change in WEI than the changes in COVID-19 variables. Additionally, even in the best-case scenario, when the pandemic is over and the economy is back to normal, it still takes several years for air travel to return to normal, as before the pandemic. The findings have significant contributions to the literature in COVID-19's impact on air transportation and air travel prediction.

Keywords

COVID-19
Air travel
Daily travel
Neural network
Simulation

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