Environmental and Economic Impacts of Advanced Aircraft Operations Technologies on a Duopolistic Airline Model

Abstract

ion Simplification Rationale Effect on Analysis  Passenger air travel on WWLMINET 257 subset  US airport as at least origin or destination between set of 257 airports  Route/city reduction: 190 airports  Contains 80% of passenger traffic (65% of operations) based on BTS data  Aircraft fleet represented by 18 aircraft  One aircraft represents all aircraft in a class  Represent technology “age”  Reduction from 100+ different aircraft types  Resolution in fleet reduced  Single airline (monopoly) or lowcost and legacy airlines (duopoly)  One or two airlines serve nearly 80% of passenger traffic; reflects much of the US air travel  Allows large numbers of routes in allocation problem by representing one airline  Does not exploit scarcity  Omits some competitive behaviors  Simplifies revenue/profit modeling  Aircraft allocation using roundtrip assumption  Avoid time of day scheduling  Assume symmetric demand between cities  Significant reduction in the number of decision variables  Removes “balance constraint”  Omits some time of day issues C. Aircraft Types The airline represented in FLEET uses 18 different aircraft types to serve passenger demand. These 18 aircraft types represent the most widely-used aircraft today, as well as new aircraft that will be available in the future. Table 1 describes these aircraft in terms of size and technology level. The 18 types fall into six classes based on passenger capacity, and into three technology levels based on entry in service and equipage. For aircraft size, class 1 encompasses small regional jets, while class 6 includes large twin-aisle aircraft. FLEET assumes that the chosen aircraft in a given class represents all aircraft of similar capacity, and only purchases and deploys these 18 aircraft models. Table 2. Aircraft classes and technology levels in FLEET Class Seats Representative-in-Class Best-in-Class Equipped Aircraft (EIS 2015) Class 1 20-50 Canadair RJ200/RJ440 Embraer ERJ145 Embraer ERJ145 Class 2 51-99 Canadair RJ700 Embraer 170 Embraer 170 Class 3 100-149 Boeing 737-300 Boeing 737-700 Boeing 737-700 Class 4 150-199 Boeing 757-200 Boeing 737-800 Boeing 737-800 Class 5 200-299 Boeing 767-300 Boeing 787 (2013) Boeing 787 Class 6 300+ Boeing 747-400 Boeing 777-200ER Boeing 777-200ER The technology levels assumed this study are Representative-in-Class, Best-in-Class, and Equipped. (This differs from the technology levels described in other FLEET studies.) Representative-in-Class aircraft are those with the most operations in their class in the year 2005 the baseline year used for most FLEET studies based on data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Best-in-Class are those operating in 2005 with the most recent entry-inservice (EIS) date. The Boeing 787 also appears in this Best-in-Class category, given its introduction to revenue service by US carriers in 2013. The third technology level, Equipped Aircraft, assumes the same airframes and engines as the Best-in-Class, but these aircraft have advanced cockpit equipage to take full advantage of future ATM technology improvements. The study’s simulations assume that all Representativeand Best-in-Class aircraft are not equipped to gain benefit from future ATM improvements. However, these aircraft types already owned by the airline can be retrofitted with advanced avionics, at a cost, if desired. Using the same airframe and engine for Equipped Aircraft as the Best-in-Class Aircraft allows the study to focus on the near-term benefits of equipage improvements only, rather than combining those benefits with improvements from new aircraft models. These assumptions make the studies simpler to organize and execute.