Modelling airline flight cancellation decisions

•We study US domestic airlines’ cancellation decisions in response to Ground Delay Programs (GDPs).•Our model captures how delays to a given flight and potential delay savings to other flights affect flight cancellation decisions.•We find larger, fuller, less frequent, shorter-distance, and spoke-bound flights are less likely to be cancelled.•There is inter-airline variation in flight cancellation behaviour.

In order to predict airline responses to Traffic Management Initiatives (TMIs), and reveal the underlying preference structures that shape these responses, we study US domestic airlines’ cancellation decisions in response to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s TMIs, in particular, to Ground Delay Programs (GDPs). By observing the actual flight-cancellation choices made by airline dispatchers, the airlines’ cancellation utility functions can be inferred through the use of binary choice models. The model captures how delays to a given flight and potential delay savings to other flights affect flight cancellation decisions. We also find larger, fuller, less frequent, shorter-distance, and spoke-bound flights are less likely to be cancelled, and that there is inter-airline variation in flight cancellation behaviour.