Airport Congestion Research Articles

Separation correction by speed-adjustment for aircraft on air routes to a congested airport

Currently, a minimum separation between aircraft (ACFT) is ensured for safety with time management primarily achieved using two-dimensional (2D) detour coordination. This result in a requirement to...

Airport capacity management: A review and bibliometric analysis

Over the past two decades, the aviation sector has seen dramatic growth in demand with limited support in terms of supply, due to under-development of the larger airport infrastructure. This has led to congestion and delays at major airports across the world. The topic of ‘airport capacity management’ (ACM) has thereby attracted considerable scholarly attention. From our review of extant literature, we find an extensive repository of research work related to ACM, vis a vis its inherent role and the expected output. Nevertheless, extant literature has failed to conduct a systematic literature review on ACM in order to understand its evolution over time. Therefore, we analyze ACM literature in detail to grasp and evaluate the work being done thus far, using bibliometric analysis. Our analysis reveals that airport capacity, congestion, competition and ground holding problems are important keywords related to ACM. Further, using co-citation analysis we identify 5 broad clusters and thought pattern of researchers. We also propose a flowchart of literature with major research area related to ACM. Finally, we note that the Journal of Air Transport Management (JATM) with 1086 citations and 109 documents tops the list of journals publishing papers on ACM.

Modelling and solving the airport slot-scheduling problem with multi-objective, multi-level considerations

In overly congested airports requests for landing and take-off slots are allocated according to the IATA World Scheduling Guidelines (WSG). A central concept of these guidelines is the prioritization of the satisfaction of the requested slots according to a hierarchy that recognizes historic usage rights of slots. A number of criteria have been proposed in the literature to optimize airport slot allocation decisions. Multi-objective programming models have been proposed to investigate the trade-offs of the slot allocation objectives for the same level of the slot hierarchy. However, the literature currently lacks models that can study in a systematic way the trade-offs among the scheduling objectives across all levels of the hierarchy and the airport schedule as a whole. To close the existing literature gap, we are proposing a new tri-objective slot allocation model (TOSAM) that considers total schedule displacement, maximum schedule displacement and demand-based fairness, and we introduce a multi-level, multi-objective algorithm to solve it. We are using real world slot request and airport capacity data to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. Our computational results suggest that the systematic consideration of the interactions among the objectives of the different levels of the slot hierarchy, results to improved schedule-wide slot scheduling performance. In particular, we found that small sacrifices made for the attainment of the scheduling objectives of the upper echelons of the slot hierarchy, result in significant improvements of the schedule-wide objectives.

How Late Does Your Flight Depart? A Quantile Regression Approach for a Chinese Case Study

Flight departure delays cost airlines and airports millions of dollars and become a systematic problem. The on-time performance at an airport is connected to and easily affected by delay propagation from previous operations of flights using the airport. In this paper, we employ both Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and quantile regressions to investigate the impact of various influencing factors on flight departure delay. By using historical flight records and weather information, the impacts of delay propagation-related and other factors are quantified to study the correlations between the explanatory and response variables. Three variables, including previous arrival delay, turnaround buffer time, and the first order of a day, are used to examine the propagation effects. We find that aircraft type, flying on a weekday, and being the first flight of a day have significant impacts on short departure delays. Ground buffer is conducive to mitigating delay propagation. For long delays, however, ground buffer cannot work in an efficient way, and the previous arrival effect is more important. Convective weather and aircraft type are the crucial factors in this situation. Interestingly, flying on a weekday suddenly becomes one of the main components under extreme delays. Meanwhile, propagated delay and airport congestion remain significantly impactful on the on-time performance.

Optimal scheduling of slots with season segmentation

Capacity at overly congested airports is managed through the allocation of slots for landing and take-off according to the IATA Worldwide Slot Guidelines. Under this scheme, slots are allocated over a six month scheduling season, and requests are typically made in series i.e. requests are made for the same time and days of the week over a given period. Although allocating slots in series has the advantage of preserving schedule regularity, it causes blocking with a detrimental effect on capacity utilization. Blocking occurs when the allocation of a given series of slots prevents the allocation of another series due to capacity constraints even though the days of the two requests do no coincide. In this paper we investigate blocking mitigation strategies. We introduce a model and solution framework that minimises blocking while maintaining a desirable level of schedule regularity. We also investigate a strategy that reduces the effect of blocking by changing parametrically the length of the period defining a series a slots. We test both strategies under hierarchical and holistic slot allocation policies using real slot request data from a congested airport. We compare the two strategies in terms of their effect on slot scheduling efficiency and schedule regularity, and we provide slot allocation policy recommendations.

How (Grandfathered) Slots Can be First-best and Prices Not

This study considers a stylized airport network designed to clearly identify the role of local and non-local passengers for the assessment of local welfare-maximizing airport congestion policies. The analysis shows that the local welfare-maximizing slot quantity can coincide with the first-best outcome whereas, in our framework, this is impossible in the case of pricing policy. Whether the outcomes coincide in the case of slot policy depends on the shares of locals and non-locals in terms of inframarginal and marginal passengers.

A Simultaneous Optimization Model for Airport Network Slot Allocation under Uncertain Capacity

Serious congestion and delay problems exist in most of the busiest airports worldwide because of imbalance between scarce airport slot resources and increasing traffic demand. Various factors, especially weather conditions, exacerbate the demand–capacity imbalance. This paper presents a robust model for simultaneous slot allocation on an airport network in multiple calendar days, considering airport capacity uncertainty. The idea of robust optimization is conducive to sustainable and stable decision-making. Robustness is represented through reducing the potential scheduling conflicts in the worst case. Then the model links the strategic decisions and pre-tactical decisions in air traffic management (ATM) through the tradeoff between strategic discrepancy cost and operational congestion cost. Under the support of the Cplex solver, numerical analyses are taken to validate the characteristics and effectiveness of the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model effectively eliminates the existing and potential scheduling conflicts, and makes effective tradeoffs between airline preference and potential airport congestion risk.

Airline baggage fees and airport congestion

This paper builds an economic model to investigate the interactions between baggage fee and airport congestion. With checked bag fees, we find that the socially optimal numbers of passengers and checked bags will not be achieved if the marginal congestion cost from carry-ons is larger than that from checked bags. However, it is possible with bundle pricing. Furthermore, we use numerical experiments to illustrate that checked bag pricing may underperform bundle pricing in terms of social welfare.

Dynamic Disruption Management in Airline Networks Under Airport Operating Uncertainty

Air traffic disruptions result in flight delays, cancellations, passenger misconnections, and ultimately high costs to aviation stakeholders. This paper proposes a jointly reactive and proactive approach to airline disruption management, which optimizes recovery decisions in response to realized disruptions and in anticipation of future disruptions. The approach forecasts future disruptions partially and probabilistically by estimating systemic delays at hub airports (and the uncertainty thereof) and ignoring other contingent disruptions. It formulates a dynamic stochastic integer programming framework to minimize network-wide expected disruption recovery costs. Specifically, our Stochastic Reactive and Proactive Disruption Management (SRPDM) model combines a stochastic queuing model of airport congestion, a flight planning tool from Boeing/Jeppesen and an integer programming model of airline disruption recovery. We develop a solution procedure based on look-ahead approximation and sample average approximation, which enables the model’s implementation in short computational times. Experimental results show that leveraging even partial and probabilistic estimates of future disruptions can reduce expected recovery costs by 1%–2%, as compared with a myopic baseline approach based on realized disruptions alone. These benefits are mainly driven by the deliberate introduction of departure holds to reduce expected fuel costs, flight cancellations, and aircraft swaps.

On-time performance policy in the Chinese aviation market - An innovation or disruption?

Congestion and delay have become a critical challenge to the aviation industry, particularly in markets with sustained traffic growth. Despite significant investments in aviation infrastructures, congestion and delay in China have placed mounting pressure on the industry and its regulator to sustain good on-time performance (OTP). In 2017, CAAC introduced a new policy that in the case of poor OTP, reduces the allowable capacity of congested airports and forces airlines to cancel flight services. This study measures the policy's effects on congestion and delays, and quantifies the change in welfare. Empirical findings suggest that the new policy reduced flight delays considerably, bringing substantial welfare gains to the passengers even under conservative estimates. However, the new policy is inconsistent with international industry practices of slot allocation and airline service operations, and may cause operational disruptions to the aviation industry. We recommend continuation of such a policy with more detailed analysis, so that regulatory innovation can be encouraged and meanwhile extensively studied. We further argue a revised policy may be implemented in growth markets, which balances welfare gains and operation disruptions.

Market Definition and Conditions to Ensure Competition in the European Market for Air Transport Services: An Analysis of Past and Upcoming Merger Cases

The Single European Sky and the Open Skies Agreements introduced a fierce competition both in the European and International Market for air transport. Former flag carriers found out that they didn’t just have to compete with other carriers, but also with new business models such as low-cost carriers and the use of the new information technologies to manage their business (for example, the use of Big Data and algorithms to determine the optimal prices and capacities of their flights). In order to survive in this competitive environment, air carriers need to adopt strategical and structural decisions to adapt their sizes and scopes to the new requirements of the market. Co-operation agreements, joint ventures and mergers play a significant role in this process. Carriers that are not able to adapt to the new market structure and requirements are compelled to disappear. The cases of Air Berlin or Germania are two good examples of this. In the last years, the European Commission has analyzed and cleared many concentrations and co-operation agreements in this sector, most of the times subject to conditions in order to ensure that the operation did not jeopardize competition neither raised entry barriers, especially in congested airports. These operations need to be considered not only taking into account the individual market players -the carriers-, but also considering the airline alliances in which they participate (mainly OneWorld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance). The problem has also to be addressed within the current debate about whether European competition rules should foster the creation of European champions, in this case, by facilitating the formation of big European carriers or alliances that may compete worldwide. In the last month the Spanish former flag carrier Iberia has announced the acquisition of AirEuropa, operation that raises concerns about competition in many national and international routes (mainly from Europe to Latin America and the Caribbean) as it may hinder the access to slots in the airport of Madrid-Barajas, that would become the fifth biggest hub in Europe. It is relevant to consider if the doctrine set by the European Commission up to now is still appropriate to address this operation.

Airport slots, secondary trading, and congestion pricing at an airport with a dominant network airline

This study investigates the efficiency of airport capacity allocation at a stylized, partly congested airport with a dominant hub carrier and a local airline that both enjoy market power. While the local airline provides direct travel utility only, the hub carrier provides additional, indirect travel utility from network density benefits. As the density benefits increase along with market concentration, they formally capture the dilemma of hub concentration. In equilibrium, the hub carrier is dominant but its network remains inefficiently small. Thus, the three common allocation instruments yield ambiguous welfare results: Airport slots only restore efficiency when a use obligation enforces slot utilization, secondary slot trading leads to market preemption by the hub carrier while the network undersize persists, and congestion pricing increases the known welfare caveat from market power; removing the network undersize requires a subsidy with a service obligation. In contrast with previous studies, which mostly consider flights as homogenous goods and airlines as symmetric, the results at hand illustrate that vertical product differentiation based on network density benefits may increase the allocation inefficiencies that arise from imperfect competition. This insight may be crucial for airport capacity allocation at a concentrated network hub with a dominant carrier.

Vertical differentiation and airline alliances: The effect of antitrust immunity

This paper explores the impact of granting antitrust immunity (ATI) to airline alliances in a novel and realistic framework characterized by vertically-differentiated air services. Our theoretical model suggests that non-ATI alliances result in higher quality services at higher fares, whereas granting ATI produces the opposite effect. Using data on the transatlantic market over the period 2010–2017, our theoretical findings on service quality are empirically confirmed. We also relate our theoretical predictions on fares to the empirical results in Brueckner and Singer (2019). Our results indicate that alliances (ATI and non-ATI) concentrate a higher proportion of frequencies on high-quality routings, although airport congestion could mitigate this effect.

A two-stage robust optimisation for terminal traffic flow problem

Airport congestion witnesses potential conflicts: insufficient terminal airspace and delay propagation within scrambled the competition in the terminal manoeuvring area. Re-scheduling of flights is needed in numerous situations, heavy traffic in air segments, holding patterns, runway schedules and airport surface operations. Robust optimisation for terminal traffic flow problem, providing a practical point of view in hedging uncertainty, can leverage the adverse effect of uncertainty and schedule intervention. To avoid delay propagation throughout the air traffic flow network and reduce the vulnerability to disruption, this research adopts a two-stage robust optimisation approach in terminal traffic flow. It further enhances the quality of Pareto-optimality Benders-dual cutting plane based on core point approximation in the second stage recourse decision. The efficiency of the cutting plane algorithm is evaluated by a set of medium sized real-life scenarios. The numerical results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the well-known Pareto-optimal cuts in Benders-dual method from the literature.

Efficiency analysis of a congested Brazilian airport applying slots optimization control: Congonhas Airport Case

The current slot allocation mechanism in Brazil, based on the International Air Transport Association (IATA) rules, and its supplementary local regulation The National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC), displays a few issues and limitations (e.g. slot misuse, allocation inefficiencies). Such issues are particularly present in the case of busy airports that works near their maximum capacity for major parts of the day. This inefficiency problem is generated because of the complexity of slot allocation added to the limited decision support available for the Brazilian system. This study focuses on the implementation of an optimal slot model, based on IATA regulations with local adaptations from ANAC at Congonhas Airport (CGH/SBSP). Final results include the reallocated slots examined within airport capacity limits and declared capacity for flights GOL 1389 and GOL 1666. This optimal solution represents an improvement in the slot allocation efficiency of 35,22% and 67,83% for flights GOL 1389 for GOL 1666 respectively. The main limitation is that the model focuses only on the availability of slots and their optimization. No consideration is given to the airport capabilities such as gate availability, baggage handling capacity and aircraft size. This leads to a less systemic analysis of the whole system.

Airport airside congestion pricing considering price discrimination between aircraft type under a Stackelberg game

ABSTRACTThis paper considers flight price discrimination between different aircraft types in an analysis of airport congestion under a Stackelberg game. In addition, we introduce a method to determine the specific total flight volume under which there should be no congestion toll because there is no congestion when total flight volume is low. Furthermore, congestion tolls should be levied on all airlines when total real flight production is between the equilibrium flights in a joint-profit maximization scenario and equilibrium flights in a self-profit maximization scenario.

Causal Factors of Flight Delay in Nigerian Airport: A Case Study of Murtala Muhammed International Airport

Delay is a prominent event mostly experienced at the airport by both airline and passengers. Globally delay is permitted at 15mins later than the scheduled time. Assessing the level of delay in the airport is a major criterion for measuring airport performance. Aircraft not adhering to schedule flight results in increased airport congestion, cancellation flight and flight delay. This study made use of primary data through well-structured questionnaires to obtain information from selected NAMA Staff at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA). Operational delay report for a month and Airlines flight were examined for two months under the MMA2 to know the deviation of scheduled flight time from actual flight time. Descriptive Analysis, Wilcoxon Rank test, Factor Analysis and Step Wise Regression were the statistical tools deployed for this research. Findings showed that on a monthly base, 63% of the domestic traffic flows are delayed. Some factors responsible for delay were considered: aircraft damage, bad weather, aircraft maintenance, VIP movement and fueling are the major factor responsible for delay of aircraft Movement.

Basic approaches to air traffic and airport slots allocation

Purpose- The purpose of the study is to determine the basic approaches to air traffic and airport slots allocation. It has been admitted that demand on aviation has been doubled many times in the last years. This has necessitated creating new models and strategies to tackle the problems of congested airports/airspace. Methodology- Literature review method was used. In this review article, some theoretical and practical studies to overcome this problem have been presented. In addition, new models and simulations have been analyzed. Findings- Many problems have been made. Some researchers have applied analytical algorithms; In addition, others have used integer algorithms. However, while researching the literature, the airspace congestion studies are all about the airspace. Conclusion- A review of the literature. The different methods, algorithms, approaches. In addition, the airport congestion was at. Moreover, it was a comprehensive comparison of all presented.

Life-cycle cost analysis of a short-haul underground freight transportation system for the DFW Airport

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct life-cycle cost analysis of a short-haul underground freight transportation (UFT) system for the Dallas Fort Worth international airport. Design/methodology/approach The research approach includes: identifying the cost components of the proposed airport UFT system; estimating life-cycle cost (LCC) of system components using various methods; determining life-cycle cash flows; evaluating the reliability of the results using sensitivity analysis; and assessing the validity of the results using analogues cases. Findings Although the capital cost of constructing an airport UFT system seems to be the largest cost of such innovative projects, annual costs for running the system are more significant, taking a life-cycle perspective. System administrative cost, tunnel operation and maintenance, and tunnel construction cost are the principle cost components of the UFT system representing approximately 46, 24 and 19 percent of the total LCC, respectively. The shipping cost is estimated to be $4.14 per ton-mile. Although this cost is more than the cost of transporting cargos by trucks, the implementation of UFT systems could be financially justified considering their numerous benefits. Originality/value This paper, for the first time, helps capital planners understand the LCC of an airport UFT system with no or limited past experience, and to consider such innovative solutions to address airport congestion issues.

Operationally Structured Model for Strategic Runway Configuration Predictions

This paper presents a model for predicting runway configurations for congested airports by hour, over a full-day look-ahead horizon. Airport departure and arrival capacity is primarily determined by the set of runways in use and the terminal weather, which can limit the volume of operations. Predicting airport runway configuration and the resulting operational capacity, especially for high-volume airports, can therefore provide valuable information for strategic planning. The model developed in this paper encapsulates the multiscale operational procedures involved in selecting runway configurations, while also accounting for the terminal-area weather forecast data. A detailed case study for two airports is presented and the model’s performance is evaluated for all of the Federal Aviation Administration’s 35 Operational Evolution Partnership airports, using both recorded weather and Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts. The differences in prediction performance between weather sources and among airports are examined.