Advance purchase behaviors of air passengers: A continuous logit model

• A continuous logit model was used to investigate air passengers’ advance purchase behaviors.
• A case study on 2011 transaction data of Taipei-Macau (TPEMFM) route is conducted.
• Advance purchase behaviors are affected by purchase price, price uncertainty, and flight time.
• Effective marketing strategies based on the identified advance purchase patterns are proposed.

Modeling the advance purchase behaviors of air passengers is essential when airlines develop revenue management strategies. Therefore, this study empirically investigates advance purchase behaviors based on the air ticket transaction data by using a continuous logit model. The estimation results show that advance purchase behaviors are significantly affected by price, price uncertainty, time of day (morning, afternoon and evening flight), days of week (flight on Friday), months of year (peak or off-peak seasons), and consecutive holiday. Accordingly, different pricing strategies should be used for different flights to maximize revenue.