Air travel for private purposes. An analysis of airport access, income and environmental concern in Switzerland

A lognormal hurdle model indicates that persons with higher environmental concern are less likely to travel by air and if they still do, they travel less. While political orientations do not affect whether a person travels by air, the results indicate that among those who do fly, respondents voting for the Green Party cause lower emissions than those opting for other left or center parties. Furthermore, higher incomes are associated with more air travel whereas living with children is associated with less air travel. Airport access is related to air travel in the sense that living closer to airports, in particular to large ones, is correlated to more air travel. The result is robust to alterations of the accessibility measure and also upholds when population density is controlled for.