Small is beautiful? The impact of economic crisis, low cost carriers, and size on efficiency in Spanish airports (2009–2011)

• Airport size has a positive and significant impact on overall, technical and scale efficiency.
• The presence of low cost carriers has produced a statistically significant impact on the overall technical efficiency.
• The productivity of Spanish airports has fallen during the economic crisis due to the contraction of the production frontier.

This paper carries out a comparative technical efficiency analysis of 35 Spanish airports using panel data for 2009–2011 with a data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology. The results suggest that airport size has a positive impact on the technical and scale efficiency and that the presence of low cost carriers has positively affected the scale efficiency of the airports where they operate. The results also show that during the present economic crisis Spanish airports have experienced a dramatic productivity regress which is due to the reduction of their technological change component.