Abstract

Airports, which have significant effects on the global economy, are the facilities that enable the transfer of passengers and cargo, and the landing and taking off of aircrafts. Between 2009 and 2019, revenue in the global aviation industry increased by 5.3% to US $ 838 billion, and the number of scheduled passengers exceeded 4.54 billion. However, due to the COVID-19 epidemic and the precautions taken against this danger, the demand for airline transportation has decreased. This decline threatens the efficiency and sustainability of many companies in the air transport industry. The efficiency of airports are greatly affected by this process. In this study, the efficiency changes of the airports in 16 provinces, which generate 95% of the passenger traffic of our country, have been analyzed with the Malmquist Total Factor Productivity Index (MTFPI). Actual data and estimated (expected) values for 2020 are used in this analysis. Passenger and airplane traffic were estimated for 2020 with the Double Exponential Smoothing method in line with the statistics of the airports between 2007-2019 included in the study for the calculation of estimated values. By using the estimated values and real values realized in 2020, individual MTFV indices (for a 5-year period) were calculated and the differences between them were analyzed. According to the findings, while an annual total productivity increase of 6 % is expected at airports, it has been observed that there has been a 41 % decrease due to the pandemic effect. According to the evaluation made on the basis of provinces, dramatic declines have been experienced with the effect of the pandemic in provinces such as Antalya, Izmir, Muğla and Hatay, which are expected to show the highest increase in activity change.