Criteria prioritization for investment policies in General Aviation aerodromes

Abstract

AbstractDue to the significant proportion of General Aviation (GA) in aircraft fleets and the high number of aerodromes in various countries, establishing investment criteria for aeronautical infrastructure necessitates the formulation of public policies regarding aviation. The literature dealing with the prioritization of airfields in receiving investments commonly uses commercial aviation data, such as the movement of passengers and aircraft at airports. As this kind of measure is not usually recorded in GA, such as the movement of air taxis, agricultural aviation, and instructional flights, the main gap covered by this study is to use variables that are feasible for GA. Adopting Brazil as a case study due to its substantial quantity of aircraft and aerodromes, this study’s georeferenced analysis considered 574 public aerodromes, 4,899 cities, and 4,550 towns distributed throughout the country, totaling 9,449 locations. To prioritize GA aerodromes, multi‐criteria decision‐making was used to prioritize 380 aerodromes with exclusive GA operations. The results indicate that regional location is the main concern in the construction of new aerodromes for GA, to prioritize better spatial coverage within the national territory. Furthermore, the study proposes a simplified mathematical model for public managers to use when formulating public policies to prioritize already existing aerodromes to increase investments and estimate maximum values to invest in these aerodromes. Different variables can be incorporated into the model according to the particularities of each country when formulating public aviation policies.