Abstract
The study of environmental sustainability in the aviation industry mainly focuses on research targeting specific regions such as the United States, Europe, and China. However, for the environmental sustainability of the aviation industry, global airlines on all continents around the world must implement efficient environmental management. This study divides the world into six continents and attempts to verify environmental efficiency for airlines belonging to each continent. Using data from 2014 to 2018 of 31 global airlines, this study compares environmental efficiency in the aviation industry by continent and individual airline. Data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is actively used in efficiency studies was adopted as an analysis method. We find that, first, airlines in Europe and Russia have the highest environmental efficiency, and airlines in North America and Canada are the second highest, which can be a good benchmark for other airlines. Second, in technical efficiency (TE) values, airlines in Africa and the Middle East and Latin America generally have low efficiency; but, in the airlines in Africa and the Middle East, environmental efficiency is steadily improving slightly. In comparison, airlines in Latin America showed a decrease in environmental efficiency value, requiring a lot of effort and investment to improve efficiency. Third, for airlines in North America and Canada, the scale efficiency (SE) value was the lowest, even though there was a high level of overall environmental efficiency, indicating the need for efficiency improvement through economies of scale. This study has implications, in that, it suggests how airlines can perform efficient environmental management for sustainability according to the continent to which they belong.
Highlights
Since the 2000s, various airlines have been launched and are pursuing fierce survival strategies
Relative efficiency was calculated by comparing a total of 155 decision-making units (DMUs) (31 global airlines × 5 years) by considering the inputs and outputs data of each year for each airline as a separate
This study evaluated the environmental efficiency of 31 global airlines in 2014–2018 for the sustainable management of airlines
Summary
Since the 2000s, various airlines have been launched and are pursuing fierce survival strategies. In 2019, there were 4.5 billion people traveling between cities and countries through airports. Due to the global economic downturn, financial crisis, and rising oil prices in the international air transport market, airlines face a deteriorating business environment, such as rising operating costs, falling profit rates, and intensifying competition. For this reason, the aviation market needs strategies to secure competitiveness. International organizations including International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and various countries are proposing regulations and policies to reduce aircraft greenhouse gas emissions; efforts to manage environmental efficiency are required. Empirical studies that investigate sustainability strategies of the global aviation industry and their effectiveness remain insufficient
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