ABSTRACT
The airport industry in Germany represents one of the traditional industries. It has reached maturity in various ways, starting in the mid-1990s with the market entry for the privatization of the airport industry (Forsyth, Niemeier, and Wolf, 2011). This was followed by the deep impacts generated by security and policy decisions after 9/11 (Kirschenbaum, 2013), and concluding with the ongoing focus on cost and pricing, so now the pressure to benchmark airport performance is paramount (Francis, Humphreys, and Frey, 2002; Cheng, Tsai, and Lai, 2009; Adler, Liebert, and Yazehemsky, 2013; Voltes-Dorta and Lei, 2013). Depending on the specific geographical region and the status of privatization, there have been an overlapping of themes in the past 10-15 years. These structural changes influenced the airports in different ways. From the perspective of the airport-services industry, the general rationale existed for consolidation and mergers, including improving technical efficiency, reducing transaction costs to customers, eliminating market imperfections, overcoming regulatory restrictions, and getting access to resources (Forsyth et al., 2011).
