DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHORS CAN WE LEARN FROM BENCHMARKING STUDIES OF AIRPORTS AND WHERE DO WE WANT TO GO FROM HERE?

In the last 15 years privatisation and commercialization of an increasing number airports have contributed to a substantial number of benchmarking studies. So far, the majority of studies focus on a national level. International studies commonly conclude that German airports are financially inefficient in comparison to other airports in Europe and in particular to Non-European countries. In the following paper, the authors analyse what factors could have caused the poor performances of German airports based on benchmarking studies of ATRS and TRL. The high degree of vertical integration was identified as a potential reason for the low performance of German airports. The paper closes with an outlook of the authors ’ own research project, German Airport Performance (GAP) which will address changes of ownership structure, competition, and economic regulation on the performance of German airports