Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Transportation Research Part D journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trd Wildlife strike cost revelation in the US domestic airline industry Jordan Navin b, ⁎ , Stephan Weiler a , Aaron Anderson b a Economics Department, C306 Clark Building, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA b National Wildlife Research Center, 4101 LaPorte Avenue, Fort Collins, CO 80521, USA ABSTRACT Since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last revisited its wildlife strike disclosure policy in 2009, the American domestic airline industry has undergone a significant increase in concentration. We analyze how the aforementioned shift in market structure has impacted the voluntary repaircostdisclosureofUSairlinesfollowingadamagingwildlifestrikeevent.Wealsoinvestigatetherelatedrelationshipbetweenprofitabilityand disclosure using an instrumental variables strategy. Lastly, we examine the interaction between competition and profits. Our results show the probability of large American airlines disclosing direct repair costs after a wildlife strike event are linked to market competition and profitability. These findings could directly inform policies managing the economic burden of wildlife strikes, most importantly, the current voluntary disclosure policy. 1. Background and motivation Driven by a simultaneous increase in both commercial aviation and wildlife species considered hazardous to such activities, aircraft collisions with wildlife pose substantial economic and safety problems (Begier and Dolbeer, 2009; Crain et al., 2015; DeVault etal.,2018;Visintinetal.,2018;Wenningetal.,2004). Dolbeer et al. (2019) estimates an average of $154 million annually in direct repair costs 1 due to wildlife strikes between 1990 and 2018. Results from Anderson et al. (2015) indicate the average direct cost of a damagingbirdstrikeintheUSin1990–2013was$225,739,withamaximumcostslightlygreaterthan$40million.In1995,theFAA collaborated on a project with the United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services (USDA/WS) to obtain additional in- formation related to the magnitude and nature of the wildlife strike issue, ultimately resulting in the creation of the National Wildlife Strike Database. Reporting strikes to the NWSD is not mandatory but strongly encouraged by the FAA. 2 Data used to calculate economic damage estimates (e.g. Dolbeer et al. (2019)) rely on the voluntary disclosure of repair cost information resulting from wildlife strike damage by aircraft operators (Mendonca et al., 2017). For the case of large commercial airlines in the United States, a single airline typically has an administrative representative coordinate with on-staff wildlife managers to disclose a given repair cost to the database (Hodson, 2017). As of July 2018, approximately 30% of strikes in the NWSD indicating structural damage to the aircraft ex-post of a strike event reported a related repair cost. Since the FAA last discussed its wildlife strike disclosure policy in 2009, the domestic airline industry has undergone significant changes in market concentration that have been linked to a decline in industry competitiveness (Bilokatch and Huschelrath, 2019; Dennis and Pitfield, 2018; Peterman, 2014; Shen, 2017). The combined market share of the top four domestic US airlines has risen from 65% in 2010 to 84% in 2015 (Forbes, 2016). This is largely the result of several consolidations within the industry, beginning with the merger of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines in 2008. Subsequent mergers include United and Continental Airlines in 2010, Southwest Airlines and AirTran Airways in 2011, and American Airlines and US Airways in 2013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2019.102204 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: jordan.c.navin@usda.gov (J. Navin). 1 Costs resulting from structural damage to the aircraft, which excludes indirect costs, such as losses from delayed flights. 2 Strike reporting has remained voluntary since the NWSD’s inception. Transportation Research Part D 78 (2020) 102204 Available online 09 January 2020 1361-9209/ Published by Elsevier Ltd. T