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Abstract
From an environmental point of view, it is widely recognized in economic literature that an efficient management of regional airports produces positive effects both for congestion reduction in the larger airports and for better use of existing infrastructures. Regional airports generally suffer from economic vulnerabilities because of scarcity of traffic volume; besides, their small catchment areas often determine low cash flow levels. As a result, significant problems of economic sustainability arise. In this context, airport infrastructure providers have the incentive to hide failures in their strategic decisions, justifying the low share of cost recovery through market characteristics. By means of the DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) method this paper analyses overall technical, pure technical, and scale efficiency of 34 Italian airports in the period 2006–2016 in order to investigate how a number of factors impact on the efficiency and economic sustainability of regional airports. Our findings reveal that airport size, presence of low-cost carriers and cargo traffic have a significant influence on the technical and scale efficiency of Italian airports. In other words, air transport privatization and deregulation can positively affect regional airport efficiency and sustainability. This is to say that the market mechanism is a useful tool in achieving regional airport sustainability even if the empirical analysis of the effects of privatization and deregulation is recommended for evaluating such political programs.
Highlights
Aviation can be considered essential within the ongoing process of globalization, from a sustainability point of view [1]
The results were obtained using the Open Source DEA software for both the constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS) models and following the output-oriented approach
In the air transport related literature little attention has been devoted to the aspects involved in the sustainability issue of peripheral airports and this might seem surprising given the relevance of the problem
Summary
Aviation can be considered essential within the ongoing process of (cultural, social and economic) globalization, from a sustainability point of view [1]. We take into account the impact of other important external factors, the size of airport and the presence of LCCs. The producers performances are often affected by external or environmental factors which may affect the production process—being responsible for differences in the performances of the data management units (DMUs)—but, unlike the inputs and the outputs, they are not under the control of production units: we refer mainly to quality indicators, regulatory constraints, market conduct (competitive vs monopolistic), type of ownership (private-public or domestic-foreign), environmental features. The producers performances are often affected by external or environmental factors which may affect the production process—being responsible for differences in the performances of the data management units (DMUs)—but, unlike the inputs and the outputs, they are not under the control of production units: we refer mainly to quality indicators, regulatory constraints, market conduct (competitive vs monopolistic), type of ownership (private-public or domestic-foreign), environmental features Such factors can be included in a model as exogenous variables, helping to explain the efficiency differentials and even to improve policymaking.
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