Efficiency of US airlines: A strategic operating model

•The paper applies the unoriented DEA to measure the operational efficiency of US airlines.•The proposed model identifies the sources of inefficiency for each US airline.•The results provide an insight on process-specific improvements for airline operational managers.•The performance of major and national airlines in 2012 are analyzed, compared, and discussed.

This paper applies the unoriented DEA network methodology to measure US airlines' performance relative to that of peer airlines and identifies the sources of its inefficiency. The analysis of the results suggests that major US airlines are more efficient than national US airlines in spending operating expenses and gaining operating revenue, but there is no significant difference in their service supply and demand efficiencies.