Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag (April 2024) 15(4):1415–1423

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13198-022-01852-6

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Operational performance of Indian passenger airlines using

hierarchical categorical DEA approach
Bharti Seth1,2 · Punita Saxena3 · Shalini Arora1

Received: 6 February 2022 / Revised: 17 September 2022 / Accepted: 28 December 2022 / Published online: 3 January 2023
© The Author(s) under exclusive licence to The Society for Reliability Engineering, Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM), India and
The Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden 2023

Abstract The challenges faced by the Indian Aviation mar-
ket are complex and perplexing for the decision-makers in
this sector. This industry has faced debilitating losses dur-
ing COVID-19 pandemic times. The travel restrictions have
been gradually lifted worldwide, and therefore the airlines
can expect to witness a growth in domestic and international
air passenger traffic during 2021–22. The losses incurred
during the pandemic times need to be recovered. Thus,
there is an urgent need to strategically plan and improve the
operations so that the airlines can perform efficiently and
earn revenues. Airlines in India work under heterogeneous
environments depending upon their segment of operations.
Some of the airlines operate for only domestic passengers
and others for both domestic and international passengers.
Therefore these airlines must be assessed as per their homo-
geneous peer group to obtain substantial results. The pro-
posed study has discussed an approach to study airlines’
operational performance using hierarchical categorical data
envelopment analysis (DEA). The airlines have been catego-
rized based upon their segment of operations. The efficiency
* Bharti Seth
bhartiseth@igdtuw.ac.in
Punita Saxena
punita.saxena@rajguru.du.ac.in
Shalini Arora
shaliniarora@igdtuw.ac.in
1
Department of Applied Science and Humanities, Indira
Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women, Kashmere
Gate, Delhi, India
2 DEA with a range of existential settings has been exten-
Present Address: School of Engineering and Technology,
Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies-TC, Delhi,
India
3
Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Sciences for Women,
University of Delhi, Delhi, India
of the airlines has been evaluated for the period 2014–19 as
per their categorical input value. Window analysis has also
been performed for a meaningful analysis of the results. The
outcomes of the study will be helpful for policymakers to
improvise the present working model of the industry and
alleviate their performance.
Keywords Indian airlines · Data envelopment analysis ·
Performance evaluation · Categorical variable
1 Introduction
Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a non-parametric tech-
nique, is based on the framework of (Farrell 1957), later
extended by Charnes et al. (1978) and Banker et al. (1984).
Techniques of DEA have been employed to measure the
relative efficiency of homologous entities called decision-
making units (DMUs) with multiple inputs and outputs. The
complexity of the relationships between multiple inputs and
outputs, where the units are frequently not comparable, is
where DEA has an edge over other mathematical program-
ming and statistical techniques. Thus, DEA offers an alterna-
tive to the traditional approaches employed for this purpose.
Further, DEA allows us to estimate efficient performance
without making restricted assumptions about the underlying
knowledge of production function. This attribute of DEA
for efficiency evaluations makes it to be more advantageous
for the policy makers and managers in taking decisions for
improvements.
sively used in identifying the technical inefficiencies of vari-
ous service sectors and industries such as transport, banking,
medical, tourism, or any production sector. In the transport
sector, DEA has been used to assess the efficiency of land,

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air, and water transport. It helps to determine their perfor-
mance, analyze the factors affecting their working efficiency,
and provide them the benchmarks for their growth. Hence,
policymakers can plan their strategies as per the results
obtained from various DEA models. DEA techniques have
been applied to assess airlines’ operational performance by
estimating their relative distance from the non-parametric
production frontier. Efficiencies calculated are comparable
to the best performing airline. Hence makes DEA a powerful
tool for comparative efficiency analysis.
The basic assumption of DEA is to evaluate the homolo-
gous DMUs, which implies that they are working under the
same circumstances and are involved in the same process.
Haas and Murphy in (2003) have stated that an analyst may
want to assess the DMUs, which are heterogeneous. They
also observed many articles in the DEA literature to assess
the non-homogeneous evaluation set (e.g., airlines serving
domestic or international sectors, banks working in rural,
urban, or tourist regions, production plants in the same
industry producing different products). Banker and Morey
in (1986) had introduced the use of categorical variables in
the basic Banker, Charnes, and Cooper 1984 model (Banker
et al. 1984). They have illustrated the use of categorical vari-
ables in DEA using actual data. They also mentioned that
categorical variables could be controllable or non-control-
lable by decision-makers. Controllable variables include
all those over which decision-makers have direct control
and can be modified. Non-controllable variables include
those which are not in control of the decision-makers of any
organization. Kamakura has overcome the limitations of the
original model of Banker and Morey (1986). However, revi-
sion in the mixed-integer model noted in Kamakura (1988)
does not allow for virtual DMUs that combine the different
categorical variable levels. Kamakura’s work was revised
by Rousseau and Semple in Rousseau and Semple (1993).
They formulated a new linear programming model to han-
dle DEA categorical variables, which annihilated the earlier
models’ shortcomings. Later on, it was further investigated
and extended by many researchers.
In the literature, Soteriou and Zenios in (1999) have cat-
egorized 144 banks into homogeneous groups as per their
working environment and size. They have evaluated their
efficiency within the groups and compared the scores of the
groups to benchmark the performance drivers simultane-
ously. In 2016, Min and Joo (2016) assessed airlines’ compar-
ative performance after the strategic alliances among global
airlines using categorical DEA. They have also mentioned
that DEA can be employed to DMUs with categorical input
values such as hierarchical levels, customer feedback scores,
level of competition, etc. In 2018 Karadayi and Ekinci (2019)
have assessed the R&D performance of European Union
countries using categorical DEA. The aviation sector is a
transport sector that includes different categories of operating
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Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag (April 2024) 15(4):1415–1423
airlines like cargo or passenger, domestic or international,
public or private. These airlines work under a heterogeneous
environment and can be categorized based on their working
environment. Evaluating airlines’ operational performance
by classifying them in homologous groups will prove to be a
better approach for efficiency evaluation and benchmarking.
The Indian airline industry had started its operations in the
year 1911. Since then, it has been functional with its complex
structures and expensive operational costs. Airline companies
function under extreme stress as they have to satisfy their cus-
tomers by providing them with world-class services and at the
same time have to earn revenues to sustain themselves in the
global market. The ongoing pandemic situation has made this
even more difficult for players in this sector. Thus, an airline
company must strategize and plan its policies carefully. Since
the aviation sector is affected by many factors and the decision-
making process is very complicated, they must arrange their
actions according to the inferences obtained from the research-
based models. However, the research related to the performance
evaluation in Indian aviation sector though being in an infancy
stage has been studied by a few researchers. The efficiency
assessments of all Indian airlines for the period 2006–2010
were studied by Jain and Natarajan (2015). Selvan et al. (2016)
conducted an analysis of the performance of Indian airlines from
2010 to 2014. They employed the super-efficiency DEA model
to rank the airlines after using the two-stage DEA to assess
overall efficiency. Seth et al. (2019, 2021) have assessed the
operational performance of passenger airlines operating in India
using traditional and two-stage approaches of DEA respectively.
While formulating a model for performance evaluation of
decision-making units, one has first to identify whether the
working environment of decision-making units is the same
or not. It may happen that some of the DMUs are working in
the highly competitive market, and others are in their typi-
cal business situation. Assessing the performance of all the
DMUs as "scratch" competitors would be unfair to those in a
highly competitive position. This complication can be han-
dled using a hierarchical category. DMUs working in a highly
competitive environment are classified as category 1. Then
those working in a normal situation are classified as category
2 and then according to the working environment. Others are
also classified similarly, and DMUs in the most advantageous
situation fall in the highest category group, say (h). In this
manner, a set of the categorical input variable is created with
input values 1, 2,…, h. DMUs with categorical input value
1 are evaluated within the group, DMUs with category input
value 2 are evaluated in reference to categories 1 and 2. Simi-
larly, DMUs with higher categories are evaluated in reference
to the DMUs falling in preceding categories.
For the Indian airline industry, passenger airlines pro-
vide only domestic services or domestic and international
services. It would be unfair and unjustified to assess the
operational efficiency of all passenger airlines on the same
Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag (April 2024) 15(4):1415–1423
grounds irrespective of whether they are working for the
domestic sector or international sector only or both the
sectors. The present study is a novel approach to evaluate
the operational performance of passenger airlines using
DEA with non-controllable hierarchical categorical vari-
ables. The study comprises the performance evaluation of
all private and government passenger airlines regarding
whether they are working in the domestic sector or in both
domestic and international.
The rest of the paper is trailed as follows. Section 2
provides a detailed explanation of the proposed work with
the data descriptive statistics and the variables used in the
study. Section 3 describes the mathematical formulation of
the proposed model to assess the DMUs with hierarchical
categories. Section 4 presents the results obtained from
the five-year data of Indian passenger airlines. Section 5
concludes the present study with future research scope.
2 Research methodology
Present work includes the formulation of the DEA conven-
tional models with hierarchical category levels and input
orientation. They are further used to assess the evalua-
tion of operational efficiency of Indian passenger airlines,
namely Air India, Air India Express, Alliance Air, Air Asia,
Air Deccan, Air Odisha, Go Air, Indigo, Jet Airways, Jet
Lite, Spice Jet, True Jet, Vistara, Zoom Air, Air Heritage,
Star Air for 2014–19. Efficiency evaluation of passenger
airlines as per their categorical input value together with
DEA conventional models in input orientation can prove
to be the best approach as they take care that the airline is
dealing in which sector. Data has been extracted from the
reports available on the Directorate General of Civil Avia-
tion (DGCA), an Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation office.
The procedure adopted for data collection and analysis
can be summarized as:
Table 1  Variables that are used in the study
Variables Definition
Input Variables
Operating It includes all the expenses which an airline company
Cost (OC) is outlaying for the smooth functioning of its opera-
tions
Fleet Size It represents the total number of aircraft, including
(FS) owned and leased, available at the end of the year
Output Variables
Passenger It includes the revenue generated from revenue-paying
Revenue passengers and extra baggage charges
(PR)
Passenger It determines the capacity utilization of any airline
Load Fac- company. It is calculated by dividing the revenue
tor (PLF) passenger kilometers by the available seat kilom-
eters
1417
1. Data Collection Airlines’ operating statistics has been
extracted from the source: https://​dgca.​gov.​in/​digig​ov-​
portal/
2. Variable Selection The process of choosing relevant
input and output variables for analysis is based on the
elements responsible for the performance of airline
firms. Prior investigations into the appraisal of the effec-
tiveness of airlines has seen a range of input and output
drivers. The economic structure, airline administrative
practices and market performance all have a significant
impact on an airline’s operational performance. Thus,
the variables chosen for the study can be divided into
three categories based on their structural, marketing,
and administrative drivers. Due to the limitation in the
availability of the data, the following four widely used
variables are selected for the study.
i. Financial Parameter: Operating cost
ii. Administration Parameter: Fleet size
iii. Financial Parameter: Passenger revenue
iv. Marketing Parameter: Passenger load factor
  Joo and Fowler (2014), Kottas et al. (2018),
Saranga and Nagpal (2016) have also used these
variables in their study. Table 1 below contains
a brief description of the variables used in the
study.
3. Data Analysis Airlines have been classified as per their
domain of service. Those working in the domestic sec-
tor are only classified as category 1, and airlines pro-
viding service in domestic and international sectors are
classified as category 2. Airlines are divided into two
sub-groups as per the categorical input value (1, 2). In
this efficiency evaluation process, category 1 airlines are
evaluated within the group only, and category 2 airlines
are evaluated in reference to airlines of category 1 and
2. Airlines in category 1 are considered at a lower level,
and category 2 airlines are at a higher level. Descrip-
tive statistics of the data for the period 2014–19 have
been provided in Table 2. Proposed models have been
executed on the data for performance analysis. Window
analysis with three windows of length three has been
done for the period 2014–19. The two categories of air-
lines have been compared bilaterally, and the airlines
under study have been ranked as per their performance.
3 Mathematical model
Let M = {1, 2, … , n} be the set of the total number of
airlines under study. Let M1 and M2 be the group of all
those airlines with categorical input values 1 and 2,
respectively. Then M = M1 ∪ M2 and M1 ∩ M2 = ∅ .
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Table 2  Descriptive statistics of the data used in the study 3.1 Categorical input‑oriented Charnes, Cooper,
Maximum Minimum Average Standard and Rhodes (CCR) model (CCR_I_CAT)
Deviation
The multiplier form of the input-oriented categorical CCR
2014–15 FS 107 3 40 40.64234
(CCR_I_CAT) model, which evaluates the efficiency of the
OC 226,854.4 2681.9 70,003.76 83,179.95
kth airline, is formulated below:
PLF 82.4 53.7 75.64 8.360885
PR 165,895.9 556.8 57,450.5 63,902.4 ⎧ Maximize θ = UYk ⎫
V, U
2015–16 FS 108 2 39.81818 42.59923 ⎪ subject to ⎪
⎪ � �⎪
OC 199,085.4 1151.5 60,557.51 74,627.98 ⎨
UYr
≤ 1 ∀ r ∈ M1 , if k ∈ M1 otherwise ∀ r ∈ M ⎬
PLF 90.6 66.5 79.48182 6.515829 ⎪ VXr
⎪
⎪ VXk = 1 ⎪
PR 181,661.2 645.1 56,013.17 67,378.14 ⎩ U, V ≥ 0 ⎭
Model 1
2016–17 FS 131 1 40.5 45.1931
OC 215,615.9 24.7 63,722.77 80,185.05
PLF 91.6 68.8 79.81667 6.559831 3.2 Categorical input‑oriented Banker, Charnes
PR 182,434 14 56,388.21 68,998.15 and Cooper (BCC) model (BCC_I_CAT)
2017–18 FS 159 2 41.28571 49.64794
OC 246,617.4 55.33 64,706.2 88,946.62 The multiplier form of the input-oriented categorical BCC
PLF 93.6 27.2 76.82143 16.48559 (BCC_I_CAT) model, which evaluates the efficiency of the
PR 213,423.4 0.48 57,086.57 76,528.45 kth airline, is formulated below:
2018–19 FS 217 1 51.45455 63.77142
OC 291,689.2 20.9 78,193.46 103,898.8 ⎧ Maximize θ = UYk − U0 ⎫
⎪ V, U ⎪
PLF 91.9 48.5 76.57273 13.25924 ⎪ �
subject to
�⎪
PR 269,473.6 3 64,975.59 86,639.44 ⎪ UYr −U0
≤ 1 ∀ r ∈ M1 , if k ∈ M1 otherwise ∀ r ∈ M ⎪
⎨ VXr ⎬
⎪ VXk = 1 ⎪
⎪ U, V ≥ 0 ⎪
The input-oriented constant and variable returns to scale ⎪ ⎪
⎩ U0 unrestricted ⎭Model 2
DEA conventional models with categorical
{ data are}pro-
posed{ in the present}study. Let X = X1 , X2 , … , Xn and The implementation of the proposed models can be stra-
Y = Y1 , Y2 , … , Yn be m × n and s × n input and output tegically summarized in the following algorithm.
matrix, respectively. Let V and U be input and output weight
row vectors. The proposed mathematical models for evaluat-
ing the efficiency performance of each kth airline are defined
below.

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 Table 3  DEA Categorical Efficiency Analysis of passenger airlines for the period 2014–19
2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 2017–18 2018–19
S No DMU CCR_I_CAT​ BCC_I_CAT​ CCR_I_CAT​ BCC_I_CAT​ CCR_I_CAT​ BCC_I_CAT​ CCR_I_CAT​ BCC_I_CAT​ CCR_I_CAT​ BCC_I_CAT​

1 Air India 1 1 0.88 0.88 0.845 0.85 0.83 0.84 1 1

2 Air India Express 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
3 Alliance Air 1 1 0.785 0.81 0.631 0.631 0.696 0.73 0.75 0.85
Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag (April 2024) 15(4):1415–1423

4 Air Asia 1 1 0.9 0.93 0.86 1 0.93 0.99 1 1

5 Air Deccan * * * * * * 1 1 * *
6 Air Odisha * * * * * * 1 1 * *
7 Go Air 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0.99 1
8 Indigo 0.91 1 0.88 1 0.91 1 0.95 1 0.86 1
9 Jet Airways 0.99 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 * *
10 Jet Lite 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 * *
11 Spice Jet 0.91 0.91 0.73 1 0.84 1 0.92 1 0.84 1
12 True Jet * * 1 1 0.62 1 1 1 1 1
13 Vistara 0.76 1 0.6 0.61 0.68 0.68 0.77 0.77 1 1
14 Zoom Air * * * * 1 1 1 1 * *
15 Air Heritage * * * * * * * * 1 1
16 Star Air * * * * * * * * 0.56 1

*Airline was not operating for that year

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4 Results and discussion

No. of times efficient

BCC_I_
CAT​
4.1 Efficiency scores

1
3

3
5
3
2
1
CCR_I_ The efficiency scores of the proposed input oriented cat-
CAT​ egorical DEA models (CCR_I_CAT) and (BCC_I_CAT)
are presented in Table 3 below for the passenger airlines
1
3

1
2
0
0
0
operating in 2014–19. The objective of the input-oriented
BCC_I_

0.95268
0.9832

0.9586

0.9818

0.9912

0.8424
model is to minimize the inputs with the production of at
0.984
CAT​

least given output levels.

1
Following are the critical conclusions from Table 3:
CCR_I_
Average

0.9434

0.9766

0.8594

0.7868
0.978

0.934
CAT​

0.956

0.798
1. Efficiency scores obtained from the (BCC_I_CAT)
model are more than the (CCR_I_CAT) model values
BCC_I_

for all the passenger airlines from 2014 to 19 since the

0.884
CAT​

0.924

0.884
0.936 (BCC_I_CAT) model has low discriminating power in
1
1

1
1

efficiency evaluation.
2018–19
CCR_I_

2. Airlines operating since 2014 are Air India, Air India

0.861
CAT​

0.921
0.789
0.824
0.769
0.932

Express, Alliance Air, Air Asia, Go Air, Indigo, Jet Air-

1
1

ways, Jet Lite, Spice Jet, True Jet, and Vistara.

3. Air India Express is the only airline that is relatively
BCC_I_

0.969
CAT​

0.985

0.796

globally and locally efficient during the study period.

0.96

1
1
1

4. It has been observed that for the years 2014 and 2018,
airlines have obtained the maximum efficiency score.
2017–18
CCR_I_

0.914
0.951

0.913
CAT​

0.977

0.874
0.826
0.792

However, for 2015–18, Air India and Alliance Air air-

lines have shown a declining trend in performance while
1

Indigo, Spice Jet, and Vistara have exhibited a positive

BCC_I_

0.9904

performance trend.
0.961
0.956

0.909
CAT​

0.982

0.773
1
1

Airlines, namely Air Deccan, Air Odisha, Star Air, Air

2016–17
CCR_I_
Table 4  Window Analysis Results using (CCR_I_CAT) and (BCC_I_CAT) models

Heritage, Zoom Air have joined the market for very little
0.901
0.939

0.904

0.988
CAT​

0.994
0.852
0.791
0.767

time, and some of them are not even operating today. There-
fore, the performance evaluation of other experienced mar-
BCC_I_

ket players with these airlines does not provide conclusive

CAT​

0.707
0.99

results.
1

1
1
1
1
2015–16
CCR_I_

4.2 Window analysis
0.919
CAT​

0.997
0.997
0.881
0.725
0.684
1

Window analysis is a unique approach to use DEA in a time

series mode. This method is a moving average analysis pat-
BCC_I_
CAT​

0.974
0.889

tern. A DMU in each period is treated as a different DMU.

The performance of DMU is compared with its performance
1
1

1
1

in other periods and compared with the performance of other

Category 2014–15
CCR_I_

DMUs in the same period. The variation of efficiency of

0.983

0.992
CAT​

0.866
0.879
0.759

DMUs over time can help in making essential conclusions.

1

1
1

Since the number of airlines operating during the study

period is few, for the period 2014–19, window analysis with
categorical data has been done to obtain the relative effi-
2
2

1
1
2
2
1

ciency scores. Operational efficiencies of each airline have

Express
Air India
Air India

Spice Jet
Air Asia
Alliance

Vistara
Go Air

been obtained by using the combination of proposed cate-

Indigo
S No DMU

Air

gorical models with window analysis for each window. Win-

dow analysis has been done for the eight airlines, namely
1
2

4
5
6
7
8

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Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag (April 2024) 15(4):1415–1423
Air India, Air India Express, Alliance Air, Air Asia, Go Air,
Indigo, Spice Jet, and Vistara, to overcome the limitation of
fewer operating airlines during the period 2014–19. These
have been working in the aviation market since 2014 and
are still operational. Table 4 presents the results of window
analysis for the period of study. (CCR_I_CAT) and (BCC_I_
CAT) models have been used for calculating the global and
local efficiency for each window. Three windows of length
three have been formed, and average values for each year
have been mentioned in Table 4. Table 4 also contains the
average global and local efficiency of each airline.
Following key points has been noticed.
1. None of the airlines is globally efficient for the period
2014–19.
2. Both Air India Express and Air Asia airlines have
achieved the highest global efficiency (0.98 approx).
3. Low performers for the period 2014–19 are Spice jet
and Vistara, but Vistara’s individual years’ performance
shows that it has been progressing since 2016.
4. The last two columns of Table 4 show the number of
times airlines can take a position on efficiency frontiers
of (CCR_I_CAT) and (BCC_I_CAT) models.
5. Air India Express for three years (2014, 2015, and 2018)
was both globally and locally efficient, which shows that
it is efficiently utilizing the input resources to obtain the
given outputs.
6. Go Air airline operating for the domestic sector is locally
efficient throughout 2014–19 and globally efficient for
2014 and 2017.
1421
The performance chart reveals the trend followed by the
eight airlines for the period 2014–19. Overall, Air Asia is the
only airline that is showing a declining performance trend in
the case of both (CCR_I_CAT) and (BCC_I_CAT) model
scores, while others have mixed performance scores over
the period.
4.3 Bilateral DEA
Further DEA-bilateral comparison model (Bilateral-CCR-I)
has been applied to test the significant difference in effi-
ciency between category 1 and 2 airlines. Bilateral DEA
assesses the efficiency of each airline of category 1(2) with
the airlines of category 2(1). This approach is beneficial
when two different groups are based on different frontiers.
Bilateral comparison model, which provides sharp dis-
crimination between two groups performance, has revealed
that category 1 airlines have outperformed the category
2 airlines for the years 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17 and
2017–18 but in 2018–19, there was no significant differ-
ence in the performance of both the categories. It can be
concluded that airlines providing only domestic passenger
services were performing better for 2014–18. Table 5 pre-
sents the ranking order of the airlines for the year 2014 to
2019 using the Bilateral-CCR-I model followed by a rank
chart representing the airlines for each year as per their
performance.
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Table 5  Ranking order from S. No DMU 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 2017–18 2018–19
Bilateral DEA Comparison
using Bilateral-CCR-I model 1 Air India 7 9 12 14 6
2 Air India Express 5 6 6 9 4
3 Alliance Air 2 2 2 5 3
4 Air Asia 1 3 3 7 5
5 Air Deccan * * * 3 *
6 Air Odisha * * * 1 *
7 Go Air 9 11 8 13 11
8 Indigo 6 8 9 10 8
9 Jet Airways 8 7 7 11 *
10 Jet Lite 4 4 4 6 *
11 Spice Jet 10 10 10 12 9
12 True Jet * 1 1 4 2
13 Vistara 3 5 5 8 7
14 Zoom Air * * 11 2 *
15 Air Heritage * * * * 10
16 Star Air * * * * 1

*Airline was not operating for that year

5 Conclusion and future scope
Indian passenger airlines belong to two different systems
based on their customer market. One system provides ser-
vice to the domestic sector, and the other provides service
to domestic and international sectors. Since their customer
dealing markets are different, relative assessment of all the
Indian passenger airlines with a single production frontier
would be unfair, and results obtained will not be substan-
tial. Thus DEA with categorical DMUs has been used to
assess the operational performance of Indian passenger air-
lines for the period 2014–19. The present study is a novel
approach comprising the mathematical formulation of the
(CCR_I_CAT) and (BCC_I_CAT) models that have been
validated through an algorithm. Airlines have been given
categorical input value 1 if they work for the domestic sector
only and categorical input value 2 if they work for domestic
and international sectors. The proposed models have been
corroborated on the real data set of Indian passenger airlines
operating in their respective categories.
Operating statistics for the period 2014–19 have been
obtained from the website of DGCA. It has been discov-
ered that some of the airlines, namely Air Odisha, Air Dec-
can, and Zoom Air, just started operating during the period
of study stopped its operation in the year 2018–19. Big
airline companies, namely Jet Airways and Jet Lite, have

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Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag (April 2024) 15(4):1415–1423
only witnessed their failure during this period. The Indian
aviation industry has seen many changes across the period
2014–19. Therefore the data obtained was not easy to handle
as the number of operating airlines was less with airlines
operating in different sectors. But the limitation of fewer
operating airlines has been addressed using the technique
of Window analysis with the (CCR_I_CAT) and (BCC_I_
CAT) models. Thus, the results obtained are conclusive
and clearly show each airline’s performance trend over the
period 2014–19. A bilateral comparison has been made to
compare the performance of airlines working in the domes-
tic sector with the airlines operating in both domestic and
international sectors. It has been found that airlines work-
ing for the domestic industry only performed better during
2014–19.
Without tasting the flavors of failure, no one can enjoy
the flavors of success. The success of any company or per-
son depends on how the company or person has dealt with
past failures. Results obtained in Sect. 4 indicate that many
airline companies have witnessed a downfall or loss. Thus,
there is a dire need to learn from failures and redesign the
operational model for the Indian airline industry. The pre-
sent study has dealt with input orientation models, and in
the future, output orientation models can also be formulated
with constant and variable returns to scale. Sensitivity analy-
sis of the input and output variables can also be done in the
future with the proposed models.
Funding The authors have not received any funding for this study.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors declare that there is no conflict of
interest.
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