Title: Does privatisation matter in the efficiency of airline freight transports? Evidence from the European market

Authors: Ville-Veikko Savolainen, Olli-Pekka Hilmola

Addresses: Kouvola Research Unit, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Prikaatintie 9, FIN-45100 Kouvola, Finland. ' Kouvola Research Unit, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Prikaatintie 9, FIN-45100 Kouvola, Finland

Abstract: Data envelopment analysis in logistics/transportation area has concentrated typically on the ownership effects on efficiency performance in sea and airports. However, transportation service providers, especially in air freight, have remained as un-researched area. Although, same ownership change trend, which started to happen in ports more than two decades ago, have influenced significantly airline industry in recent decade perspective. As for lead-time wise and global cargo operations, air freight is vital today; we are trying to sketch ownership effects on freight transportation performance in Europe. Based on our research work, it is concluded that privately operated airlines are not showing higher performance as compared to publicly owned. Instead, scale analyses reveal that larger entities would increase efficiency in the future among number of companies.

Keywords: airlines; freight transport; efficiency; ownership; Europe; air freight; privatisation; performance evaluation; data envelopment analysis; DEA.

DOI: 10.1504/WRITR.2008.021483

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, 2008 Vol.2 No.1, pp.9 - 29

Published online: 28 Nov 2008 *

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