EVALUATION OF THE OPERATIONAL AND FINANCIAL EFFICIENCY OF THE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES’ BIG SCALE FLAG CARRIER AIRLINES USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

Abstract

Civil Aviation Industry has entered into a great development trend, especially since the 1978 deregulation period. Strategies implemented by airlines are of great importance in this development trend. Although airline partnerships cause airlines to lose their brand values, more successes are achieved under operational and financial criteria. For this reason, airline partnerships have been a strategy used by both large and small scale airlines in European aviation for the last 10 years. When it is examined the 10 biggest airlines of Europe excluding low-cost carriers, it is seen that only Turkish Airlines have not in a partnership. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of partnerships established on the airlines' operational and financial efficiency. While the number of revenue passengers and the total number of landings are operational inputs, the available seat kilometer and revenue passenger kilometer are financial outputs. While the results obtained from these data help to determine how efficient the biggest airlines in Europe are, on the other hand, it expresses how important it is in its different criteria.