Airport management, green logistics, and service quality in the shift to low-carbon civil aviation operations

Airports face mounting pressure to deliver low-carbon Scope 1 and Scope 2 operations, yet airport carbon management, green logistics, and passenger service quality are usually studied separately. This paper examines how these three dimensions relate to operational emissions intensity using an airport-year panel of 60 international airports observed from 2015 to 2022 (480 airport-year observations). Scope 1 and 2 emissions and traffic data are combined with Airport Carbon Accreditation records, airport sustainability reports, and Skytrax-based rankings. Three indices are constructed: an Airport Management Index for carbon governance, a Green Logistics Index for cargo-side environmental practices, and a Service Quality Index for passenger-facing performance. Fixed-effects panel models with airport and year fixed effects are estimated for emissions per passenger and per aircraft movement. Over time, in airports, a ten-point increase in the management index is associated with roughly 3 to 4% lower emissions intensity per passenger, while a comparable change in the green logistics index corresponds to 2 to 3% lower emissions intensity. The service quality index shows no systematic association once management and logistics are included. The pattern is stable across alternative index constructions, alternative weights, lagged specifications, exclusion of COVID-19 years, and a falsification test. The findings show a clear dissociation: low-carbon airport performance and high service-quality rankings are largely separate dimensions of airport operations.