I'd say this is essentially an instance of the sequential monopolization problem and imperfectly aligned incentives due to a difference in the shape of each party's cost/demand curve.
The classical example of sequential monopolization is a car manufacturer and a local car dealership. The manufacturer wants to sell a large number of cars at a fixed price, while the dealership would rather sell a smaller number of cars so that they can maximize their margin on each sale.
Airports want high numbers passengers to maximize retail/parking/etc revenue (in which they have a monopoly), but don't directly care which flights are more profitable or how much the passengers pay for airfare as long as they fill the airport.
Airlines are maximizing a different demand curve, in which most of their profit comes from a small number of profitable routes while most other flights are slightly unprofitable. Their biggest incentive is to prevent competition on those premium routes, which they can do by monopolizing flight slots.
Sequential monopolization is a high-energy state for a market; absent other forces/regulations, it would be more profitable for the two companies to merge or otherwise form a partnership that looks more like a vertical monopoly.
All that said, we only care about this because of the negative externalities created by the current equilibrium, both in the carbon cost of air travel and the massive taxpayer subsidies for airport construction that are wasted then that airport's takeoff and landing slots are inefficiently allocated.
So, I'd say one possible solution would be to tax the airlines for the carbon used by all flights, perhaps at a penalty rate for flights above some amount of kg-per-passenger-mile.
The classical example of sequential monopolization is a car manufacturer and a local car dealership. The manufacturer wants to sell a large number of cars at a fixed price, while the dealership would rather sell a smaller number of cars so that they can maximize their margin on each sale.
Airports want high numbers passengers to maximize retail/parking/etc revenue (in which they have a monopoly), but don't directly care which flights are more profitable or how much the passengers pay for airfare as long as they fill the airport.
Airlines are maximizing a different demand curve, in which most of their profit comes from a small number of profitable routes while most other flights are slightly unprofitable. Their biggest incentive is to prevent competition on those premium routes, which they can do by monopolizing flight slots.
Sequential monopolization is a high-energy state for a market; absent other forces/regulations, it would be more profitable for the two companies to merge or otherwise form a partnership that looks more like a vertical monopoly.
All that said, we only care about this because of the negative externalities created by the current equilibrium, both in the carbon cost of air travel and the massive taxpayer subsidies for airport construction that are wasted then that airport's takeoff and landing slots are inefficiently allocated.
So, I'd say one possible solution would be to tax the airlines for the carbon used by all flights, perhaps at a penalty rate for flights above some amount of kg-per-passenger-mile.