Assessing the dynamic efficiency and technology gap of airports under different ownerships: A union dynamic NDEA approach

Abstract

Airport performance assessment is important to a variety of stakeholders. It is particularly relevant to measure airport operational efficiency and the ways in which it can be improved through measurement can be undertaken by examining the relationship between airport ownership and operational efficiency. In the present study, a new model called the union dynamic network data envelopment analysis model has been propounded and has been employed to analyse the dynamic efficiency and changes of technology gaps of 50 European airports with different ownerships in the period 2011–2017 within the meta-frontier framework. The results demonstrate that over the years, even though the dynamic meta efficiency of private majority airports has been the best in both production and sales stages of operation, public corporation airports have been technology leaders amongst other groups of airports. The findings give direction as to what aspects the airport managers and practitioners need to focus on so as to undertake airport performance improvement.