A Survey of Empirical Research on the Productivity and Efficiency Measurement of Airports
Abstract
Airport benchmarking has become a popular tool used by economists and airport managers alike. Within academic circles, a number of studies emerged assessing the productivity and efficiency of airports. This paper surveys the methods, data, and findings of empirical research in order to learn from previous research, and to gain further understanding of the airport industry. Our survey reveals that while commercialisation and restructuring contributed to efficiency increases, findings on ownership and scale effects are inconsistent. Data availability generally proved to be a serious issue. However, substantial progresses in capturing the increasing heterogeneous character of airports were made over time.
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It is often difficult to get comprehensive and detailed data even for publicly listed firms, let alone for small and regional airports.
“It is often difficult to get comprehensive and detailed data even for publicly listed firms that are obliged to prepare annual report, let alone for small and regional airports ( Liebert and Niemeier, 2013 ); see also Pauwels et al. (2024) for a recent overview on how to uniformly define a regional airport.”
From Status quo and challenges in air transport management research (2024) · cites this paper as Liebert and Niemeier, 2013
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“In this scenario, airport benchmarking is of increasing concern and source of debate for both academics and practitioners (Liebert and Niemeier, 2013).”
BackgroundThe impact of national macro-environment exogenous variables on airport efficiency
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“Different than Park (2003) we did not include the type of airport operation (public or private) in our model, because the effect of privatization on airport competitiveness is not at all clear.”
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“A number of studies investigated the impact of different forms of ownership, particularly privatization, on airport efficiency; however, as Liebert and Niemeier [16] emphasize, results from several empirical studies that analyzed the relationship between ownership characteristic and the efficiency of airports are ofte…”
ResultPersistent and temporary inefficiency in airport cost function: An application to Italy
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Self-citationRegional change in the hierarchy of Brazilian airports 2007–2016
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“To measure the efficiency level, non-parametric models such as the data envelopment analysis (DEA), stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), and distance function models are commonly used in airport efficiency assessment [2,3].”
MethodThe Cost Structure of the Airport Industry: Methodological Issues and Empirical Evidence
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“Different techniques and the airports’ heterogeneous character may lead to controversies across studies [12].”
BackgroundMethodExploring the Impact of Pandemic Measures on Airport Performance
Liou, J. J. H., Chien, C.-W., Pineda, P. J. G., Li, C., & Hsu, C.-C. (2024) · Aerospace · doi:10.3390/aerospace11050373 · Cited by 10
“Several authors have conducted literature reviews related to airport performance, including those of [17], who presented a collection of papers published between 1997 and 2010 with 59 studies on airport benchmarking; Bezerra et al. [18], who carried out a systematic literature review about…”
BackgroundStructural efficiency assessment of regional airports: Lessons from India
Thomas, N., & Jha, K. (2022) · Utilities Policy · doi:10.1016/j.jup.2022.101449 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
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Are spatial effects important while assessing airport efficiency? - A Case of India
Bansal, S., & Sen, J. (2022) · Case Studies on Transport Policy · doi:10.1016/j.cstp.2022.08.012 · Cited by 9
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Comparative Efficiency Analysis of Tourism Industry in the Southern Mediterranean Region
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Airport incentive regulation in practice
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Self-citationAssessing the tourism efficiency in the Caspian Sea region
Nurmatov, R., Nanovsky, S., Lopez, X. L. F., Millan, P. P. C., & Saavedra, D. P. (2025) · International Journal of Water Resources Development · doi:10.1080/07900627.2024.2435990 · Cited by 5
“According to Liebert and Niemeier (2013), the first stage’s discriminatory power remains unaffected as the explanatory variables are not incorporated in it.”
Towards environmental sustainability: an empirical study on airports efficiency
Serio, R. G., Dickson, M. M., Giuliani, D., & Espa, G. (2024) · Applied Economics · doi:10.1080/00036846.2024.2425114 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“Despite this, another relevant issue in applying DEA models in the airport field concerns the size of DMU s and their comparability (Liebert and Niemeier 2013).”
Does economic regulation improve efficiency? The case of airports
Adler, N., Niemeier, H.-M., & Kumar, S. (2025) · Transport reviews · doi:10.1080/01441647.2025.2572516 · Cited by 3
“For example, Karanki and Lim (2020) used work load units as an output, which is not a good indicator of the volume of passengers and cargo handled because they differ in their resource requirements and revenue contributions (Liebert & Niemeier, 2013).”
Self-citationPagoni, I., & Koumoutsidi, A. (2022) · Future Transportation · doi:10.3390/futuretransp2040043 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Corruption and airport efficiency: A study on Asian airports
Randrianarisoa, L. M., Oum, T., & Yu, C.-Y. (2022) · Transport Policy · doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2022.11.001 · Cited by 2
Air transport performance: current evidences about the efficiency of Italian airports
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“A comprehensive literature review on a number of methods for measuring airport efficiency, including both DEA and SFA, is presented in the very recent article by Liebert and Niemeier (2013).”
MethodStudying the empirical implications of the liberalization of airport markets
Button, K. J. (2020) · Competition and Regulation in Network Industries · doi:10.1177/1783591720935767 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“There is also limited discussion of the more technical economic issues involved in quantifying such things as airport efficiency; this is well covered in Forsyth (2007b), Liebert and Niemeier (2013), and Lai et al. (2012).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialInsights Into the Drivers of Inefficiency in U.S. Airports
Karanki, F. (2026) · Public Works Management & Policy · doi:10.1177/1087724x261494566
Chen, Z., Xiao, C., & Fan, J. (2026) · Research in Transportation Business & Management · doi:10.1016/j.rtbm.2026.101696
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“According to the Transport Research Society on Productivity (Liebert, 2013) BIA has been identified as a low efficient airport in Asian region.”
MethodEfficiency of Peruvian regional airports: Does the PPP framework make a difference?
Chang, V., & Tovar, B. (2026) · Journal of Air Transport Management · doi:10.1016/j.jairtraman.2026.102972
INFLUENCE OF THE THREE LINKS AGREEMENT ON THE BEHAVIOR OF TAIWAN AIRPORTS: A TWO-STAGE DEA ANALYSIS
Yang, L. (2017) · doi:10.38008/jats.v8i1.41
“In fact, in the appendices of Liebert and Niemeier's survey of empirical studies on the productivity and efficiency of airports (Liebert & Niemeier, 2013), only 4 studies employ price-based index approaches, 20 papers applied parametric approaches (SFA: Stochastic frontier analysis, is the main…”
Background
- Authors
- Liebert, V., & Niemeier, H.-M.
- Venue
- Journal of Transport Economics and Policy
- Publisher
- Liverpool University Press
- Published
- 2013-05-01
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 157-189
- ISSN
- 0022-5258 (ISSN-L)
- 1754-5951
- OpenAlex
- W1680284932
- Cited by
- 71
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 3
- FWCI
- 16.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Transport Economics and Policy (publishedVersion)
- Journal of Transport Economics and Policy (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Aviation Industry Analysis and Trends
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Efficiency Analysis Using DEA
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Transport and Economic Policies
- Keywords
- airport productivity, airport efficiency, airport ownership, economies of scale, data availability, airport industry
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