Liquidity management performance of major international airline companies

Abstract

Civil aviation sector is developing in line with global economic developments. Total number of passengers carried on scheduled services rose to 4.1 billion passengers increasing by 7 % in year 2017. While total number of departures increased to 37 million, highest number of all times, global passenger load factor (LF) reached 81 % in 2017. European air carriers recorded a growth of 8 % and accounted for the largest share of 37 % of total international scheduled passenger traffic. Asia Pacific had the second largest share of 29 % growing by 10 % in 2017 (Directorate General of Civil Aviation, 2018). Meanwhile, number of passengers in Turkey rose to 193 million increasing by 11 % for the same year (Turkish Airlines 2017 Annual Report, 2018). Due to this growth, Turkey had a market share of 5 % on a worldwide basis. The aim of this study is to analyze liquidity management performance of 20 international airline companies, of which two of them are operating in Turkey, between 2011 and 2017 by using liquidity ratios. This analysis thus underlines best airline companies in the world from liquidity perspective. 2 Literature Review Feng and Wang (2000) analyzed operational and financial performance of five Taiwanese domestic airlines named as Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT), TransAsia Airways (TNA), UNI Air (UIA), Great China (GCA) and Formosa Airlines (FMA). They divided the performance into three categories as production, marketing and execution and formed. © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin 2019 All rights reserved.