Coto-Millan et al. (2014) performed a comparative technical
analysis of 35 Spanish airports using operational and financial data
for the period 2009e2011. The results suggested that airport size
affected airport technical and scale efficiency in a positive way, and
the presence of low cost carriers positively affected the scale efficiency.
During the economic crisis, the productivity of Spanish
airports fell, due to the contraction of the production frontier.
Merkert and Mangia (2014) studied the cost efficiency of 35 Italian
and 46 Norwegian airports over time, applying a two stage
approach to evaluate the role of competition (both from other airports
and from surface transport) as a key determinant for efficiency.
They showed that competition had an impact on airport
efficiency and so did military use/ownership and size when taking
into account cost data.
A thorough summary of previous empirical work is available in
Wanke (2012) and Coto-Millan et al. (2014). The main contribution
of our research relating to previous studies on airport efficiency,
and particularly to those applying DEA to Greek airports, is that in
the second stagewe used connectivity and hotel infrastructure that,
to the best of own knowledge, has not been used before. Having
reviewed articles in the international literature and having a clear
viewpoint of the role of Greek airports, we now proceed in selecting
those factors relevant for the study of airport efficiency