The “effect procargo” on technical and scale efficiency at airports: The case of Spanish airports (2009-2011)

This paper studies the “effect procargo” (or effect of the proportion of cargo traffic relative to total traffic) on technical and scale efficiency at airports. To this end, using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology, a comparative technical efficiency analysis is developed for 35 Spanish airports over the 2009 to 2011 period. In a second stage, using Tobit regression, we analysed the effects of airport size, low-cost carrier (LCC) presence, and cargo traffic on efficiency. The results suggest that cargo traffic has a positive impact on the technical and scale efficiency of Spanish airport operations. Airports with a higher share of cargo traffic are expected to have higher overall technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency, in comparison to airports with a lower share.