Institute of Transportation, MOTC

    The aviation industry is important for foreign trade activities no matter for  passenger or commodity transport . By providing the s ervices for passengers and cargo , airlines are expected to make a profit. However, due severe competition t he profits from passenger and cargo transport are sometimes unstable. How to measure performance for aviation industry become s critical issue. Previous literature tends to evaluate the performance from the perspective of airlines or airports. Only limited literature discuss the performance in terms of routes , such as Taipe i to Hong Kong and Taipei to Tokyo. It is necessary to evaluate route based performance for aviation industry since route based can reflect the varieties of operating characteristics . In order to ide ntify the variables that have a
significant impact on air line operating performance from previous literature, the study first reviews the literature for all levels in aviation (i.e., route, airline, and airport with meta analysis approach to perform systematic literature review . Then, we can confirm the proper input and output items and key variables. Later, this study uses those key factors identified in meta analysis deliver performance evaluation in route base. Therefore, the study choose s airline route as a decision making unit with data envelopment analysis (DEA) modelling approach to evaluate the performance. Base on DEA model results , we fu r ther use meta frontier model to determine group efficiency and technical gap ratio, and discuss the efficiency based on the input and output v ariables. Finally, utilize the cluster analysis to classify efficient and inef ficient routes. The research aim s to provide a performance indicator as a reference for airlines. The airline company manager can adjust the route input and output variables by t he study result.