The Development of Benchmarking Techniques in Airport Performance Evaluation Research

The purpose of this article is to further an understanding of the airport sector through a systematic analysis of the existing studies assessing the economic efficiency and productivity of the sector. A full review of journal papers from 1990 to 2011 was undertaken. The emphasis is on the measurement methodologies, the variables used, and the results associated with the various airport activities. Particular attention is given to the increased employment of mathematical modeling and advanced statistical analysis methods. However, this is also yielding an increasing set of inputs and outputs used for analysis, which can then influence the comparability between studies. As well as overall efficiency, two questions particularly emerge as being of interest for this research—the influence of airport size and ownership structure/governance on efficiency. However, current research does not provide a conclusive answer. A number of research opportunities are identified, including the necessity to more closely include the opinions of relevant stakeholders in order to improve the data analysis system and future research samples.