An assessment of worldwide airline productivity for the years 1980-2013

This paper applies a stochastic frontier analysis approach to a sample of 77 worldwide airlines for the period 1980-2013. We compute and decompose the total factor productivity growth into efficiency, technical and scale efficiency change. Our results show that on average airlines increased productivity over the period. Efficiency and technical change improved, while scale efficiency shows that the average airline moves away from the most productive scale size (especially in the first two decades). Comparison between geographical area, business models, network and alliances are also provided.