ANALYSIS OF THE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF AIRLINE COMPANIES IN STAR ALLIANCE USING LOPCOW-TOPSIS METHODS

This study aims to comparatively evaluate the financial performance of the airlines included in Star Alliance for the period 2018-2022 (pre-COVID-19, COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 periods). For the performance evaluation, 5 criteria and a total of 9 financial performance ratios were used. The LOPCOW method was used to determine the criterion weights of the calculated financial performance ratios and the TOPSIS method was used to determine the performance rankings. According to the results of the LOPCOW analysis, the most important criterion was determined as net profit/total assets (PR3) for 2018, net profit/total equity (PR2) for 2019 and 2021, short-term debt/total assets (FSR3) for 2020 and net profit/net sales (PR1) for 2022. The criterion with the lowest importance weight was net balance sheet position/equity (CA) for 2018, 2019, and 2021, net sales/ current assets (AT) for 2020, and short-term debt/total assets (FSR3) for 2022. According to the TOPSIS performance evaluation results, the best-performing airline was Shenzhen Airlines in 2018, 2019 and 2020, Thai Airways International in 2021, and Aegean in 2022. The airlines that ranked last in the performance ranking were Croatia Airlines in 2018, Asian Airlines in 2019, Thai Airways International in 2020, Air Canada in 2021, and Air China in 2022.