Depeaking Strategies for Improving Airport Ground Operations Productivity at Midsize Hubs

Abstract

Today, most large airlines operate using a hub-and-spoke strategy. At hub airports, the carriers attempt to optimize their flight schedules to minimize passenger transfer times for connecting flights. The result is a high number of flight arrivals and departures during the peak periods but only a few movements in off-peak periods. This imbalance means that infrastructure and personnel are used inefficiently. Depeaking, which consists of spreading flights more evenly throughout the day, allows airlines and ground handlers to use their resources more efficiently. Depeaking can reduce energy consumption by reducing airport congestion. Although depeaking has been applied successfully at major hubs to relieve congestion constraints, it has not been applied specifically to reduce costs and energy use. Therefore, the goal of this study was to evaluate the cost savings potential of depeaking. The focus was on cost savings for the ground handler, because obtaining airline data was difficult, given the highly competitive state of the industry. Several depeaking scenarios were evaluated with data from Zurich Airport (Switzerland). The research shows that depeaking reduces extreme workload peaks, enables staff and equipment to be used more efficiently and thereby reduces costs. The results for Zurich Airport show that a small amount of schedule adjustment can reduce ground handling costs by approximately 8%. Under the maximum schedule adjustment scenario, depeaking could reduce costs by up to 20%. The research can be extended to include additional peak-oriented costs such as airline company costs and costs of energy, as well as revenue impacts of reduced flight connectivity.