Efficiency measurement of Chinese airports with flight delays by directional distance function

This paper employs directional distance function to evaluate the technical efficiency of twenty major Chinese airports from 2006 to 2009 within a joint production framework of desirable and undesirable output (i.e. flight delays). The results indicate that the overall average efficiencies of Chinese airports increased over the period of time. The international hub airports are found to operate at higher efficiency level, which indicates that these airports run well in producing more desirable outputs and controlling flight delays. Although the average efficiency score of listed airports is higher than non-listed ones, the difference between the two group is statistically insignificant. A comparison between the results without and with flight delays show that several airports experienced significant changes in their efficiency scores after considering undesirable output. •Directional distance function is used to evaluate the efficiency of Chinese airports.•Flight delay is included as an undesirable output in airport efficiency evaluation.•International hub airports showed better operating performance.•The performance difference between listed and non-listed airports is insignificant.