Air traffic forecast and its impact on runway capacity. A System Dynamics approach

Abstract

The uninterrupted growth of air traffic in Colombia has been reinforced since the 1990s by a public policy of liberalization of airspace, and by redirecting public and private investment towards the modernization and updating of airport infrastructures, giving in concession the busiest airports in the country, 19 to date. In the commercial air sector, and in this same period, the flag airline was privatized and new air operators, including low cost airlines (LCC), entered the market. Since 2012, air fares are completely deregulated. Consequently, in the last two and a half decades, passenger transport in Colombia grew by 863%. This important growth rate has been driven and led by the country's main airport, the Bogotá-El Dorado International Airport (BOG), in the capital of Colombia. But some technical reports consider the airport will reach its maximum capacity in the short term mainly because of its inability to expand its airfield (runway system). Due to this circumstance, the aeronautical public authority of Colombia gave course to the planning, design and construction of a new airport (complementary) on the outskirts of the city of Bogotá, which will enter the design phase in 2026/2027. Therefore, it is considered suitable the development of a traffic forecast for BOG in the medium term and to evaluate the impact of future demand on the runway capacity of the airport. Then, and due to the complexity of the air transport forecast, the use of System Dynamics (SD), is considered to be appropriate as an analysis approach. System Dynamics is based on feedback control theory and it is equipped with mathematical computer simulation models, which uses linear and non-linear differential equations. The results suggests a need to expand the airport case study (runway system) after mid-2019, where the current capacity utilization factor is around 100% and two to three runways will be required for the normal operation; after October 2022 the number runways required is set to three until the last period simulated (2023).