Date of Conferral

8-1-2026

Date of Award

August 2026

Degree

Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.)

School

Management

Advisor

Roger Mayer

Abstract

After nearly 5 decades of deregulation, commercial airline leaders still lack the capability to improve financial performance by structuring their maintenance operations to gain competitive advantages in highly competitive global markets. Without an effective strategy, airline maintenance affects service and financial performance. Framed with Porter’s competitive advantage theory, this quantitative nonexperimental correlational project was to examine the relationships between airline in-house maintenance and overhaul employee spending, business model, geographic region, and financial performance of global commercial full-service carrier (FSC) and low-cost carrier (LCC) airlines. Longitudinal panel data were collected from 121 LCCs and FSCs operating from 2001 to 2019 in the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) 193 participating member states. Data included archival financial and operational airline data from the ICAO Data+ online database. The results of the multiple linear regression analysis showed no statistically significant relationships between the dependent and independent variables (F(4, 116) = 2.342, p = .059). However, for the geographic-region independent variable, the category group for the Asia, Middle East, and Pacific regions was found to be significant after controlling for all other variables (B = -.023, t = -2.100, p = .038). A key recommendation is that commercial airline leaders develop better methods to evaluate finances and operations in order to gain competitive advantages. Through the resulting improved financial performance, commercial airline leaders promote positive social change by offering air travel at competitive prices, thereby improving customer satisfaction while increasing job security and reducing turnover.

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