Date of Award

Fall 12-14-2024

Access Type

Dissertation - ERAU Login Required

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Aviation Business Administration

Department

Aviation Business Administration

Committee Chair

Chunyan Yu

First Committee Member

Bijan Vasigh

Second Committee Member

Farshid Azadian

Third Committee Member

Joao Souza Dias Garcia

Abstract

The Pacific Alliance, established in 2011 by Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, is a regional initiative with a combined GDP of $2.8 trillion and a population of 230 million. The primary objectives of the Pacific Alliance are to facilitate the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people, while enhancing the competitiveness and economic growth of its member nations. Transport infrastructure—particularly airport infrastructure—is a key enabler for achieving the Alliance's objectives.

The limited progress in achieving the Pacific Alliance's objectives related to the airport industry has motivated the author to seek information—particularly scarce in the cases of Colombia and Peru—and to develop algorithms for data standardization. Additionally, the author has applied appropriate methodologies to obtain results that are useful not only for decision-makers within the Pacific Alliance, whether collectively or in each country individually, but also for airport managers in Latin America and other countries with similar characteristics.

This dissertation first examines the relationship between airports and regional economic growth, and whether airport privatization and commercialization have improved airport operational performance and accelerated regional economic growth within the Pacific Alliance (PA). Second, it evaluates the impact of the privatization strategies employed by PA member countries on airport operational performance and estimates their productivity growth. Finally, it assesses the impact of these privatization strategies on the financial performance of the airport concessionary companies.

The first part of this study, based on a dataset of 86 airports in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru for the period 2006–2019, and employing Granger causality and Instrumental Variables (IV) tests using Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) models, confirms a bidirectional relationship between the airport industry and economic growth. It also shows that airport privatization and commercialization have a significant effect on airport traffic growth. The second part focuses on a dataset of 53 airports in Chile, Mexico, and Peru during the period 2014–2019, while the third part examines 11 concessionaire companies managing 42 airports in Chile and Mexico between 2016 and 2018. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) were used for efficiency and productivity analysis, while financial performance was assessed through financial analysis. In both cases, the results indicate that privatization strategies have no significant effects on airport efficiency or the financial performance of airport concessionaire companies in the PA member countries.

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