Empires of the sky: Determinants of global airlines' accounting-policy choices

This study quantifies the current level of diversity observed in airline accounting and examines possible determinants that explain accounting-policy choices by the global airline industry. Airlines' accounting-measurement policy for unrealized foreign-exchange differences and their disclosure of frequent-flyer information remains diverse. Inferential statistics shows that larger airlines tend to take unrealized foreign-exchange differences directly to equity and tend to disclose frequent-flyer accounting policy, while airlines with lower leverage tend to disclose frequent-flyer accounting.