The Effect of Domestic Air Travel on the Spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.

ABSTRACT

We examine the relationship between passengers arriving from COVID-19 hotspots during the early period of the pandemic and the number of COVID-19 cases or deaths in a MSA during the first wave of the pandemic in the U.S. To do so, we link airline passenger flows with COVID-19 infection and mortality data. We control for MSA-level population and demographic data. We examine infection and mortality rates in MSAs receiving more versus fewer airline passengers from four early COVID-19 hotspots: New York City, Boston, Detroit, and New Orleans. We then compare the effect of airline passengers from these four hotspots with the effect of airline passengers from a set of eight cities with similar numbers of departing airline passengers. We find no evidence that passengers arriving from four early COVID-19 hotspots are positively correlated with local COVID-19 infection and death rates. More broadly, we find no evidence that passenger arrivals from COVID-19 hotspots increased the early spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. Our results indicate that banning domestic air travel may do little to slow the spread of infections.

KEYWORDS:

• Exposure
• airlines
• travel
• COVID-19

JEL Code:

• R41

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.