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Abstract: This paper focuses on measuring and comparing productive efficiency and profitability among airports owned and operated by government departments, 100% government-owned corporations, independent airport authorities, mixed enterprises with government majority ownership and mixed enterprises with private majority ownership. The analysis is based on a cross-sectional, time-series dataset (2001–2003) for the major Asia-Pacific, European and North American airports. There is strong evidence that airports with government majority ownership and those owned by multi-level of government are significantly less efficient than airports with a private majority ownership; there is no statistically significant evidence to suggest that airports owned and operated by US government branches, independent airport authorities in North America, or airports elsewhere operated by 100% government corporations have lower operating efficiency than airports with a private majority ownership; airports with a private majority ownership achieve significantly higher operating profit margins than other airports; whereas airports with government majority ownership or multi-level government ownership have the lowest operating profit margin; and generally, airports with a private majority ownership derive a much higher proportion of their total revenue from non-aviation services than any other category of airports while offering significantly lower aeronautical charges than airports in other ownership categories excluding US airports. The results suggest that private–public–partnership with minority private sector participation and multi-level governments’ ownership should be avoided, supporting the majority private sector ownership and operation of airports. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper provides a partial summary of the 2003 ATRS (Air Transport Research Society) Global Airport Benchmarking Report which uses the annual data for 2000–2001. The objective of the ATRS benchmarking report is to measure and compare the performance of several important aspects of airport management and operation: productivity and efficiency, unit costs and cost competitiveness, financial results. The report also examines the relationships between various performance measures and airport characteristics in order to better understand the observed differences in airport performance. This particular paper extracted from the benchmarking report focuses on measuring and comparing operating efficiency performance of the world’s major airports. In particular, the paper presents the results on the airports’ Variable Factor Productivities (VFP) after removing the effects of the variables beyond managerial control. In the process, it identifies the effects of various factors influencing airport’s VFP, and computes a ’residual’ VFP index as an indicator for airports’ operations efficiency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper measures and compares the performance of 10 major North American airlines in terms of residual total factor productivity, cost competitiveness, and residual average yields during the period 1990–2001. Our key findings are: (a) the airlines in North American improved productive efficiency by about 12% between 1990 and 2001 despite the fact that there were substantial reduction of residual TFP between 2000 and 2001; (b) airlines need to perform well in both productive efficiency and pricing to be financially successful; (c) significant productivity improvement in the 1990s enabled the airlines to cope with rising input prices and downward pressure on yields; (d) airlines that aggressively expanded fleet in response to the fast growing market during the mid-1990s have suffered loss in productive efficiency; (e) the 9/11 terrorist attack has led to substantial reductions in airlines'' yields, and declining productivity and increasing unit cost. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] A differentiated Bertrand high speed rail and airline network game is developed. [•] We analyze airline liberalization, intermodal competition & airport slot allocation. [•] A case study of Northeast Asia highlights social welfare benefits of opening skies. [•] However, benefits between countries are uneven, limiting likely implementation. [•] Liberalization & matching slot allocation policies maximize benefits to society. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]