Application Of The DEA Method To Measurement Of The Efficiency Of Chinese Commercial Airports

Since the beginning of reform and opening up in 1978, there is rapid development of national economy of China, and so is a great increase in the demand for air transportation. In order to meet requirements of civil aviation transportation development, many civil airports have been constructed and expanded. Civil airport is important basic transport installation and their operation are character with business and social utility. However, the operating efficiency of the airport has not been given enough attention. Many of the previous studies for the evaluation of the airport, few are involvement in the airport's operating efficiency. So it is very important to establish indicators system on airport operating efficiency corresponding to national economic situation and airport operation statusAirport is a multiple-input and multiple-output decision unit. How to properly evaluate the relative efficiency of the airports is difficulty, it is also a hot spot.Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as a method for appraising relative efficiency is widely used in many fields. The paper first presents a DEA approach to evaluate the efficiency of Chinese commercial airports, the time span is from 2000 to 2004. Though a few works have been done in the field of using the DEA method to evaluate some airports'efficiency abroad, the input-output items they chosen have limitation. So the results are not really accuracy.After reference to civil airport operating efficiency research achievement, the paper suggested the core indicators include the main business costs, fixed assets, current assets, the main business revenue, passenger throughput and aircraft take-off.The items this work chosen can reflect the airport's all movements, so the results are scientific. This work will give some advices to the improving airports'operations.