Sustainable airline company selection using SWARA Weighted VIKOR and COPRAS methods

Year 2025, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 139 - 151, 31.03.2025

Aybike Esra Şahin , Celil Durdağ , Fatma Betül Bağlan , Elif Arslan Dinç

https://doi.org/10.35208/ert.1488726

Abstract

Global climate crisis necessitates all countries to swiftly and agilely conduct their economic activities in accordance with green sensitivity and sustainability principles. The aviation sector, one of the industries most affected by socio-economic and socio-cultural changes worldwide, cannot avoid this trend. Consequently, significant studies exist in the literature on the effects of the global climate crisis and sustainability efforts in the aviation sector. This study aims to measure the approaches of the world's leading international air cargo companies to the 2030 and 2050 European Green Deal targets. Among the criteria weighted using the SWARA method are 'carbon dioxide emissions,' 'energy consumption,' 'employment,' and 'water consumption.' The results indicate that the most critical criterion for airline sustainability is reducing CO2 emissions, followed by reducing energy consumption. Water consumption reduction ranks third, and employment ranks last in terms of importance. The study examines air cargo companies ranked in the top 10 globally by revenue and ranks them using the VIKOR and COPRAS methods. According to data from 2021, Korean Air, Turkish Airlines, and Cathay Pacific emerge as the top performers in sustainability among air cargo companies, while Cargolux and UPS lag behind others in their sustainability efforts when evaluated using VIKOR and COPRAS methods.

Keywords

Air transport, CO2 emission, Energy consumption, European green deal, Multi-criteria decision making, Sustainable airlines

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