Ground Handling Operations Research Articles

Electric Taxiing System. Kinetic Energy Recovery System as an Electric Taxiing Solution: Economic and environmental analysis: Phenom 300 case study

The aviation industry has thrived in recent years, with a significant increase in passenger numbers, leading to the development of larger aircraft fleets and the expansion of airport infrastructure. In 2019, more than 4.5 billion passengers traveled by airplane, which represents an 80% increase compared to 2009. As a consequence, this growth has also resulted in longer taxiing times for aircraft, increasing fuel consumption and operational costs. The industry's CO2 emissions have quadrupled since the 1960s, with over 1 billion tons released in 2019, contributing to global warming. Given that the improvements being made to current propulsion systems and the production of over 600 million liters of SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) in 2023 do not seem sufficient to meet the ambitious goals set by regulators and operators, the logical solution would be to develop a system capable of moving the aircraft on the ground using alternative, cleaner, and cheaper energies, such as electric power. This paper explores the latest advancements in electric propulsion systems, specifically focusing on external and onboard systems. After the state of the art is established, this paper will cover a case study and propose a new alternative for an onboard system called ETS – Electric Taxiing System. The ETS is a 100% electric system for ground handling operations designed to use only the kinetic energy stored in a battery pack, which is recovered during aircraft landing and braking events. Although there are some studies on this topic, the author considers this paper to be more comprehensive as the results computed here take into account 96 variables, 60 simulations, several flight plans, and real-world data. The case study focuses on the implementation and dimensioning of the ETS, considering electric motor power and torque, and battery capacity for the Embraer Phenom 300. A brief economic and environmental analysis was also conducted, considering the operation of NetJets Europe, the world's leading and largest private jet company.

ВОЗРАСТ ПИЛОТА И ТРАВМАТИЗМ В АВИАЦИИ

The results of an analysis of the influence of pilot age on injury statistics in civil aviation are described. The proportion of aviation accidents caused by human actions remains the same and even tends to increase. Workers continue to get injured during ground handling operations for aircraft. The authors' assessment of the various risk factors contribution to ongoing negative events confirms the human factor prevalence. Statistics on the activities of civil aviation was analyzed. Examples of aviation accidents involving general aviation aircraft and medical aircraft transporting patients who required emergency medical care were considered. It has been shown that there is a peak in the aviation accidents for pilots aged 50-59 years, and this peak is observed among experienced pilots with more than 5,000 hours of flight time. For pilots aged 40-49 years, half of the accidents occurred among aircraft commanders with 1,000 ... 5,000 hours of flight time, and about one third among pilots with less than 500 hours of flight time. It was revealed that for domestic general aviation in 2020, the main causes of aviation accidents were such elements of human factor as piloting errors associated with deficiencies in training and little flight experience; loss of spatial orientation in weather conditions that do not comply with visual flight rules, when the underlying surface is white, when caught in a snow whirlwind, as well as a collision with power line wires.

The Role Of The Apron Movement Control Unit In Ground Handling Operations

Kalimarau Airport is a Class 1 Airport Service Unit located in Berau Regency, East Kalimantan Province. Is an airport that provides air flight services. To meet the needs of services on the land side and on the air side, the airport cooperates with other parties. Observers conducted research at this airport using observational. To find out the role of the Apron Movement Control (AMC) unit in ground handling operations at Kalimarau Berau Airport. It is hoped that observers will know the use of Ground Support Equipment (GSE) by ground handling officers at Kalimarau Airport. This study uses research methods using qualitative methods and data collection methods, namely using descriptive qualitative methods, namely describing the conditions that occur in the research object. Data obtained from direct observation, literature study, descriptive and interviews. Monitoring the orderliness of ground handling officers is part of Apron Movement Control (AMC) duties. There are markings on the apron that are not yet available at Kalimarau Airport, namely staging area markings that have a function as a place for Ground Support Equipment (GSE) while waiting or standing by on the apron. Some things that can be optimized are increasing awareness of orders among ground handling officers in the use of Ground Support Equipment (GSE). In order to create a safe and orderly Kalimarau airport environment. Some things that can be optimized are increasing awareness of orders among ground handling officers in the use of Ground Support Equipment (GSE). In order to create a safe and orderly Kalimarau airport environment. Some things that can be optimized are increasing awareness of orders among ground handling officers in the use of Ground Support Equipment (GSE). So that the movement of vehicles on the air side can be more directed and safe.

Multi-agent planning and coordination for automated aircraft ground handling

Inspired by the vision of fully autonomous airside operations at Schiphol airport, this study aims to contribute to the short-term goal of automated aircraft ground handling. In this research, we design and evaluate a multi-agent system for planning of automated ground handling. There are two main components in the system: task allocation optimization and multi-agent path planning. To allocate tasks to ground support equipment (GSE) vehicles, an auction mechanism inspired by temporal sequential single item (TeSSI) auction is proposed. Ground handling tasks scheduling for GSE vehicles is modeled as several single-vehicle pickup and delivery optimization problems (SPDP), and the values of the objective functions are used to generate bids for GSE vehicle agents in the auction. Prioritized safe interval path planning for large agents (LA-SIPP) is used to plan collision-free paths for GSE vehicle agents in the model to execute tasks. The aim is to increase the success rates of allocating tasks and finding collision free paths without causing flight delays, given the limited resources such as a small number of available GSE vehicles, time windows constraints and conflicting interests of different agents. Due to the results, even for the instances with frequent flights and the most limited resources, the success rates of allocation and path planning were higher than 81% and 98%, respectively. Furthermore, periodic task allocation and path planning of the ground handling tasks for flights in three aircraft stands during a planning time window of the day, as well as replanning in case of disruptions were performed in a short CPU time. There is a lack of research dealing with the complete process of ground handling, since existing studies concerning the automation of ground handling operations involve fleet assignment or task scheduling models without an integration of detailed path planning. Our main contribution is to present a framework that combines task allocation and path planning for automation of ground handling operations and provides solutions using a multi-agent perspective.

Formation and Routing of Worker Teams for Airport Ground Handling Operations: A Branch-and-Price-and-Check Approach

We address workforce optimization for ground handling operations at the airport, focusing on baggage loading and unloading. Teams of skilled workers have to be formed and routed across the apron to unload the baggage from the aircraft after a landing and to load it before takeoff. Such tasks must be performed within time windows and require a team of workers with different skill levels. The goal is to find a feasible plan that minimizes the sum of the tasks completion times. We formalize a variation of the workforce scheduling and routing problem, integrating team formation, hierarchical skills with downgrading, multiple trips, and different execution modes. We propose a solution approach based on branch-and-price-and-check and test it on real-world instances from a major European hub airport. We propose a model based on the Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition. In the pricing problem, we generate tours of teams as shortest paths with constrained resources in a network. In the master problem, we select an optimal set of tours that do not exceed the workforce availability. Our experiments show that the proposed algorithm can produce optimal solutions for small- and medium-sized instances and good or optimal solutions for large instances. The results also show that our approach outperforms the current airport dispatching policy. Funding: G. Dall’Olio was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [Grant Advanced Optimization in a Networked Economy Graduiertenkolleg 2201, Project 277991500]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2022.0110 .

The Effect of Nepotism on Intention to Leave of Aviation Employees

Havacılık, uçuş emniyetinin ön planda tutulduğu bir sektördür. Yapılan her işlemin bir kural ve prosedürü bulunmaktadır. Bu açıdan, sektörde görev alan her çalışanın nitelikli olması ve işini doğru bir şekilde yerine getirmesi gerekmektedir. Bu bağlamda liyakat ilkesine aykırılık sektörün aleyhine olacaktır. Kayırmacılık ise liyakat anlayışına tamamen karşı bir olgudur. Çünkü, işe uygunluk ve nitelik referanstan sonra gelmektedir. Bu durum, diğer çalışanlar üzerinde birçok olumsuz etki bırakacaktır ve zamanla işten ayrılma niyeti ortaya çıkacaktır. Bu çalışmanın amacı; eş-dost kayırmacılığı olgusunun havacılık çalışanlarının işten ayrılma niyetine etkilerini ortaya çıkarmaktır. Kayırmacılık olgusu ile işten ayrılma niyeti arasındaki ilişkiyi ortaya çıkarmak için Türkiye’de faaliyet gösteren havayolu, yer hizmetleri ve havaalanı işletmelerinde görev yapan 388 çalışandan anket yoluyla veri toplanmıştır. Elde edilen veriler, nicel analiz yöntemleri ile analiz edilmiştir. Çalışma kapsamında; havayolu, yer hizmetleri ve havaalanı işletmelerinde görev alan çalışanların örgüt içinde karşılaştıkları kayırmacı tutumlar, bu tutumların işten ayrılma niyeti üzerinde yaratacağı etkiler ve havacılık çalışanlarının demografik değişkenleri ile arasındaki ilişki ortaya konmaktadır. Bu bağlamda çalışmanın alan yazına katkı sunması ve havacılık sektörü özelinde yaşanan eş-dost kayırmacılığını ortaya çıkarması beklenmektedir.

Airport electrified ground support equipment for providing ancillary services to the grid

The ground handling operations are used in airports for handling activities and processing passengers with the help of specially designed vehicles known as ground support equipment. The ground support equipment (GSE) is being parked after serving a flight until the next flight. The GSE idle duration between flights is depending on the flight schedule and can be turned into a profit source. This paper is presenting a methodology for electrified ground support equipment (EGSE) for providing frequency regulation ancillary services to the grid through an aggregator. The passengers flight schedule is considered to increase the vehicles’ availability to participate in the frequency regulation ancillary services market. The optimization model is formulated to maximize the airport profitability by using aggregation of EGSE in frequency regulation market. The results show that the EGSE provides a significant profit by participating in frequency regulation ancillary service with the use of V2G mode.

LTE/GNSS IOT TECHNOLOGY AS A BACKBONE FOR AIRPORT GROUND HANDLING OPERATIONS

The necessity of a positioning service for various ground handling assets is key to improving airport performance. Reported in this article is a system named “Ground Eye”, designed to be a test of a possible implementation of the independent LTE-based communication system and GNSS-based location services. The test campaign used a total of nine prototype devices for a period of one month at Gdańsk airport (Poland). The main goal of this demonstration was to verify the possibility of using the GNSS/LTE system as a fast-deployment option in the airport environment, as well as to evaluate its positioning and communication capabilities in conjunction with React.JS/Deck.GL/Node.JS dedicated application. The test campaign verified that even with simple processing and relatively simple single-frequency measurements, multi-constellation GNSS receivers, it is possible to obtain location with precision reaching better than 2.5 metres. This precision should be good enough for all ground handling operations at modern airports, without the need for additional fixed infrastructure.

Ergonomic Risk Factors in Ground Handling Operations to Improve Corporate Performance

Ground handling operations can be accepted as the heart of safe flight, beginning from the ground to the air. In ground handling activities where there is tight time pressure, human resources are of great importance in efficient and safe service. This study presents ergonomic risk factors affecting the operational and corporate performance of aircraft ground handling services. Ergonomic related performance fields are identified via expert opinion and a taxonomy focusing on classified error conditions for ground handling services. The taxonomy is developed to improve corporate performance while eliminating ergonomic risks and maintaining a safe working environment. Identified performance risks are intended to be a guide for operational managers in aircraft ground operations in the field of investments, decision making and safe operations.

“You are not my boss!”: Managing inter-organizational collaboration in German ground handling operations

While inter-organizational coordination among firms in networks has become a widespread phenomenon and the governance of inter-organizational networks has garnered considerable attention in the management literature, the repercussions of the network form for managing and organizing work remain a considerable gap in the literature. Building on Gittell’s concept of relational coordination, we explore the inter-organizational work collaboration in four German airports’ ground handling operations. By zooming-in on ramp agents’ boundary spanning work role, our comparative study illustrates whether and how a collaboration in inter-organizational work processes is brought about in practice. Our findings reveal the various practices ramp agents deploy in order to handle the tensions emerging from divergent organizational jurisdictions and the requirements for collaboration. We also illuminate how the field-level context influences inter-organizational collaboration by setting conditions such as workload and time restrictions in distributed service delivery.

Substantial effect of voluntary policy interventions on aircraft ground handling safety

Managing safety and health matters require comprehensive policy intervention to change the existing culture in the ground handling operations and reducing the safety performance outcomes. This study aims to investigate the relationship between safety culture and safety performance outcome with voluntary policy intervention as the moderating effect of the relationship. The study employed a quantitative method through a survey instrument, which was participated by 423 ground handling workers from six international airports in Malaysia. The results indicated seven hypotheses in direct relationships have positive association between safety culture and safety performance construct. While for moderator relationships, there were five hypotheses found to be statistically significant and supported. The presence of voluntary policy interventions were found to be beneficial or detrimental elements for the insignificant relationships of the study. The ground handling organisation is expected to utilise these results by strengthening their organisation safety culture and prioritise safety and health matters over demand and cost.

Scheduling Aircraft Ground Handling Operations Under Uncertainty Using Critical Path Analysis and Monte Carlo Simulation

Aircraft ground handling is an integral part of airline operations. Although ground handling operations usually are straightforward, it could be very complicated in certain situations, such as troubling cargo loading and unloading incidents, weather conditions or improper use of equipment and breakdowns. Ground handlers need to orchestrate a number of activities within a confined area around airplane in a short period of time. Punctuality is important for airlines and resulting increased efficiencies. In this article, scheduling aircraft ground handling operations with uncertain durations using the critical path analysis and Monte Carlo simulation is considered with the aim of improving aircraft ground services during the turnaround. Having an accurate estimate of aircraft turnaround time considering its type and load, the recourses would be assigned to the ground operations more efficiently. A case study of a long-range wide-body twin-engine jet aircraft is discussed in detail. The results indicate that the proposed method gives improved scheduling relative to the routines observed at a hub airport.

Voluntary Policy Interventions: Elevating Safety and Health Compliance in Aircraft Ground Handling Operations

Objective – The present study intends to examine the safety culture and safety performance outcomes relationship, present the findings on safety culture dimensions and discuss in detail on the moderating role of occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) policy interventions. Methodology/Technique – A literature research was employed to review occupational safety and health area on specific safety culture dimensions with regard to aviation (between the years 1997 to 2018) as well as law and science policy on human behavior. Findings – The findings on safety culture dimensions were discovered from a multilevel perspective of safety culture and climate studies and were categorized as generalization and personalization. The findings also demonstrated the mandatory and voluntary approach in carrying out the OHSMS policy interventions. Novelty – The findings on safety culture dimensions indicated the functionality of generalization and personalization that portray the substance of the workplace culture for aircraft ground handling. The introduction of voluntary policy interventions to elevate OHSMS compliance was essential to the study because they revealed people's willingness to change their behavior, practice self-regulation, and respond to the existing regulatory models. Type of Paper: Conceptual Keywords: OHSMS; voluntary compliance; safety culture; safety performance outcomes

An Improved Method for Scheduling Aircraft Ground Handling Operations From a Global Perspective

The turnaround is a critical airport process where a set of interrelated operations need to be performed to get an aircraft ready for its next flight. These activities are carried out by different vehicles, which need to be coordinated to guarantee an efficient utilization of resources. Due to the relations between operations, the order in which these resources are scheduled has a critical influence on the planning and performance of the turnaround. In this work, we present a novel methodology for solving the proposed bi-objective ground handling scheduling problem from a global perspective. This means solving a set of interconnected routing problems with restrictive time windows for each operation. We first explore the solution space using a fast heuristic, focusing then on the most promising solutions to intensify the search in the vicinity of the Pareto frontier. This two-step schema permits significantly reducing the required computational time, which, in turn, allows a more thorough exploration of solutions. Different experiments over real data from two Spanish airports have been conducted to assess the proposed methodology. Our results show that the new method not only outperforms previous approaches in terms of computational requirements, but can also improve the quality of scheduling solutions.

Aircraft ground operations: steps towards automation

The state of the art of aircraft ground-handling operations at airports is analysed. The overall automation of these activities is addressed and the main challenges to be overcome to build safe and efficient-automated ground-handling systems are identified. The most promising opportunity appears in the short term with docking of ground support equipment to aircraft, then with further autonomous vehicles moving around the aircraft and later with new automated systems within the aircraft. A concept for automated vehicles operation around the aircraft is also presented.

Quality assessment of airline baggage handling systems using SERVQUAL and BWM

The baggage handling system is a crucial part of ground handling operations, which significantly contributes to the overall satisfaction of passengers. Although several studies have investigated airline service quality, little attention has been paid to this crucial part of the system. This study proposes the SERVQUAL model to assess the perceived quality of service for the baggage handling system. A literature review provides a list of criteria per dimension of the SERVQUAL model. The best worst method (BWM) is used to calculate the weights of the criteria. The data for the BWM are collected via a sample of passengers from different nationalities. It is found that ‘reliability’ is perceived as the most important dimension followed by ‘responsiveness’. The ‘assurance’ criterion is third closely followed by ‘tangibles’ and lastly ‘empathy’. A cluster analysis further sheds light on how passengers might have different service quality priorities.

Single Till or Dual Till at Airports: A Two-sided Market Analysis

Big airports profits are more and more often coming from commercial activities such as retailing. However, commercial services are relatively far from the original mission of the airport: providing airlines with aviation services such as ground handling, terminal management or airside operations, and being regulated for that because of an obvious dominant position with respect to airlines. For this reason, one can advocate for the separation of the two activities, i.e. for a dual till approach, in which only the aeronautical activity is regulated. We, instead, suggest that a single till regulation, in which the total profit of the airport is examined, is relevant because it allows to take into account the externalities existing between retailing and aeronautical services. Using a two-sided market approach (Armstrong, 2006, Rochet-Tirole 2003, 2006), we show that the airport is a platform which makes the shops and the passengers meet. The retailing activity depends on how many passengers are circulating and connecting at the airport, as well as the time they spent in the airport, while passengers value the least connecting time as possible. We show that the aeronautical tax can be either higher or lower under single till depending on whether the impact of the passengers demand or of the waiting time is the more important for the shops.

Aligning decision support with shop floor operations: a proposal of intelligent product based on BDI physical agents

Multi-agent system (MAS) models have the drawback of an excessive dependence on up-to-date field information and on complex interaction protocols. This work proposes a theoretical and experimental agent-based decision support system (DSS) architecture that is designed and developed to align shop floor operations, but including the radio frequency identification (RFID) information feedback. This product-driven MAS has been structured on a split organization model to enforce the idea of division between physical elements and information and communication technology. The proposed MAS framework, called MAS-DUO, has been tested at the ground-handling operations at the Ciudad Real Central Airport and in a simulated logistics centre at the Autolog Labs-UCLM. This paper introduces the beliefs–desires–intentions (BDI) physical agents of this framework as the core of this new approach, a new vision that mixes BDI reasoning, RFID and the Markov decision process.

Agent-Based Distributed Control for Improving Complex Resource Scheduling: Application to Airport Ground Handling Operations

Recent research on highly distributed control methods has produced a series of new philosophies based on negotiation, which bring together process engineering with computer science. Among these control philosophies, the ones based on multiagent systems (MASs) have proved to be especially suitable to address distributed decision making in highly volatile environments. Furthermore, this agent-based approach allows using new manufacturing concepts in scheduling problems because of its scalability, ability to negotiate, and distributed capabilities. However, MAS models have the drawback of excessive dependence on up-to-date field information. In this paper, a theoretical and experimental MAS is presented to test new strategies for managing handling operations supported by radio-frequency identification information feedback. Based on this new visibility framework, these strategies applied to scheduling control have been structured on a new distributed organization model to enforce the idea of the division between physical elements and information and communication technologies. This division into two platforms simplifies the design and development of the MAS, providing a higher level of abstraction and preserving the independence between platforms. The proposed MAS, called MAS-DUO, has been validated using a test bench simulator and at the Ciudad Real Central Airport in Spain.

The impact of business growth in the operation activities: a case study of aircraft ground handling operations

This work aims at developing a Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) method for analysing and overcoming the impact of business growth in the operation activities. A framework based on Delphi method, IDEF3 methodology, discrete event simulation and Design of Experiment is presented for predicting future scenarios and analysing the consequences. The case study of an Italian airport, has been analysed in order to explain the proposed approach. In particular, the company that manages the airport aims at increasing the air traffic and it is necessary to assess the impact of this choice on ground handling operations. The BPR procedure proposed in this work allowed the company to analyse the As-Is ground handling processes and to design a To-Be scenarios for improving the service efficiency and quality.