European Regional Airport: Factors Influencing Efficency

During the recent decade a lot of research has been focused on identification of the importance of regional airport for the local economy and the measuring and predicting of the airport’s efficiency. With regard to individual airport planning it turns out that airports are not free in the optimization of infrastructure due the need to comply international aviation standards and recommended practices, one the one hand, and the tendency of air transportation system development including aircraft design and airlines’ fleet development, on the other. Furthermore, it is also important to take into account the specificity of each particular airport, including the traffic variability resulting from seasonality, with the airport’s mission geared to it. We found, tha t one of the reasons for the relatively low efficiency of regional airports, given the general trend in the growth in the number of seats for narrow-body aircraft. Likewise, it has been found, that the seasonality of air traffic at regional airports is comparatively high. In addition, this paper spotlights the ways the theoretical model of returns to scale affects the efficiency of the apron of the regional airport and briefly discusses the different interpretations of the definition of regional airport.