Empirical analyses of airport efficiency and costs : small regional airports and airport groups in Europe

Small and regional airports often have insufficient revenues to cover their costs. The question is how such airports could be efficiently structured, managed and financially supported. Some airports are operated individually and receive direct subsidies from the local and federal governments. Others survive through cross-subsidizations. This dissertation first deals with the efficiency of 85 small regional European airports for the years 2002-2009 by applying a data envelopment analysis. Estimates show the potential savings and revenue opportunities to be 50 percent and 25 percent respectively. Belonging to an airport system reduces efficiency by about 5 percent. The average break-even passenger throughput over the last decade more than doubled to 464 thousand passengers. However airports behaving efficiently could have covered their operational costs with a mere 166 thousand passengers annually. The second part addresses the comparison of airports belonging to AENA and DHMI for the years between 2009 and 2011. The majority of airports operate under increasing returns to scale. A Russell measure of data envelopment analysis is implemented. Results indicate higher average efficiency levels at Spanish airports, but private involvement enhances efficiency at Turkish ones. Certain policy options including a greater decentralization of airport management and the restructuring of the airport network (by closing some inefficient airports) should be considered to increase the airport systems’ efficiency. In the final part of the dissertation, we have studied how the airport specific characteristics drive the unit costs. In order to capture the spatial interdependence of airport costs, a spatial regression methodology is applied. Two separate datasets of subsidized French and Norwegian airports are used to test various hypotheses. The results show a negative effect of subsidies on airport cost efficiency. Furthermore, the significance of scale economies is illustrated.