Title: Evaluating the operating efficiency of airlines in the USA

Authors: D.K. Malhotra

Addresses: Thomas Jefferson University, School House Lane and Henry Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19144, USA

Abstract: This study benchmarks the six largest airline companies in the USA against one another using linear programming technique of data envelopment analysis (DEA). We evaluate their operating efficiencies for the period 2013 to 2017. The DEA model uses well-performing airlines (efficiency of 1 or 100%) that are closest to the under-performing airline on the efficiency frontier as a 'role model' (peer units) for the under-performing airline. We find that only one of the six airlines, Jet Blue Airways Corporation, was 100% efficient throughout the sample period of 2013 to 2017. All six major US airlines showed improvement in efficiency from 2013 to 2017.

Keywords: operating efficiency; commercial airlines; data envelopment analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBISE.2021.122742

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Systems Engineering, 2021 Vol.1 No.4, pp.271 - 282

Received: 27 Mar 2019
Accepted: 09 Sep 2019
Published online: 10 May 2022 *

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