Title: Green transport efficiency and factor mismatch of airlines under environmental constraints

Authors: Yan Zhang; Jian Yu; Yiying Fang; Sang-Bing Tsai; Quan Chen

Addresses: Research Center for Environment and Sustainable Development of the China Civil Aviation, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, China ' Research Center for Environment and Sustainable Development of the China Civil Aviation, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, China ' Collage of Economic and Management, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, China ' University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Zhongshan Institute, Xueyuan Road, Zhongshan, Guangdong 528402, China ' University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Zhongshan Institute, Xueyuan Road, Zhongshan, Guangdong 528402, China

Abstract: As China transitions towards high-quality economic development, exploring and improving the green transport efficiency of airlines on the premise of environmental constraints is important for the country's industrial transformation. The paper used the slack-based model (SBM) and meta-frontier model to measure both the efficiency and efficiency gaps of Chinese airlines under different, as well as identical production frontiers. The operating data samples of Chinese airlines were selected from 2001 to 2016. The paper also analysed the issue of inefficiency caused by the mismatch of airline factor inputs. The results showed that: first, the overall efficiency of airlines in China followed a W-shaped change; second, private joint-venture airlines had the highest efficiency and the efficiency increased relatively quickly; and, third, the allocation redundancy factor input was an important reason for the airline inefficiency, and obvious improvement was noted regarding issues pertaining to personnel redundancy and fuel consumption redundancy. Based on the results of measurement and analysis, countermeasures are proposed to promote the efficiency of airlines in China so as to achieve high-quality development.

Keywords: transport efficiency; environmental constraints; heterogeneity of property rights; airlines; environmental management; environmental technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJETM.2020.112955

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, 2020 Vol.23 No.2/3/4, pp.293 - 305

Received: 23 Nov 2019
Accepted: 30 Jul 2020
Published online: 11 Feb 2021 *

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