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This paper provides a new approach to evaluating the influence on passenger F&B consumption and expenditure of terminals that approximate to the concept of an airport shopping mall. Using a broad database of 37,226 passengers interviewed at eight different Spanish airports, including two Spanish hub airports, Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona, with a methodology framed within statistical causal inference with Kernel and Radial matching, the results robustly demonstrate that passengers alter their consumption behavior in hub airport malls compared to how they behave at regional airports with a smaller commercial and F&B offer. Specifically, there is an increase of between 3.7 and 4.1% in the likelihood that hub passengers will make a consumption and between 1.2 and 1.3% in the likelihood that they will make a purchase, while mean per-passenger spending increases by 3.53€.

Using a robust transfer function model methodology, the present paper seeks to offer empirical evidence regarding the size and type of effects that low-cost carriers (LCCs) have had on traffic for charter carriers (CCs) in the Spanish airport system by geographic market. We show an unmistakable substitution relationship between CCs and LCCs in the latter's typical niche markets, national and European flights, while there is no reaction from the CCs in the segment of international flights outside the EU. Furthermore, substitution effects are smaller between CCs and LCCs on the domestic level than effects between LCCs and network carriers (NCs) and slightly larger on the European level. Lastly, CC traffic's different sensitivity to terrorist attacks, day of the week, air accidents and the economic crisis is also evident. CCs should therefore be considered an independent category that warrants individualized analyses.