Measuring sustainable added value: A study on airline companies

It is critical to develop a picture of the airlines’ economic and social characteristics to comprehend the growth potential of air transportation. In this context, sustainable reporting is a type of information report that emerges from the enterprises' economic, environmental, and social activities. Especially in recent years, airlines have preferred sustainable reporting to monitor the sustainability levels of their economic, environmental and social performances and to gain a competitive advantage. In this regard, sustainability reports disclose accurate, understandable, and sufficient information, particularly about environmental issues. Despite a boundless amount of literature on airline business models, there is a lack of studies related to the sustainable practices of airlines. One of the academic methods used to measure sustainability performance is the sustainable value-added approach, which provides for the opportunity cost. The project tries to explain the sustainable value-added method in measuring the sustainability performance and also to calculate the sustainable value-added of the first ten airlines in rankings estimated by the IATA report in 2020. This paper examines sustainable value-added results among the top ten airlines. A newly recent approach will be employed, using a content analysis of ten airlines’ documentation including sustainability and annual reports.