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A critical comparison of airport capacity studies
Journal of Airport Management,
14
(3),
307-321
(2020)
Abstract
Airport traffic management should solve a trade-off between minimising congestion and maximising capacity: different methods are available in the literature to assess the maximum traffic flow that an airport infrastructure can manage under satisfactory conditions. The paper compares the output from two approaches currently adopted to compute airport capacity: the Advisory Circular AC 150/5060-5 and the AirTOp Fast Time Simulator (FTS). An Italian airport with a high volume of traffic has been considered in order to analyse two layouts. The baseline scenario represents the current operating airport layout, while the what-if scenario implies geometrical and functional improvements (ie a new runway and modified operating conditions are considered). For a given Level of Service and different reference periods, saturation and sustainable capacities were calculated. The comparison of the obtained capacities allows evaluating the reliability of the obtained results and evaluating the potential capacity gains of the infrastructure. Particularly, the results demonstrate that the simpler Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) methodologies could accurately estimate both baseline and what-if hourly capacities; the more complex FTS is, however, necessary to calculate reliable daily and annual capacity values because of the real traffic demand during the periods of time. All input data was provided by the airport management body: the results are reliable and could be transposed to similar conditions.
Keywords: airport capacity; fast time simulation; aircraft delay simulation models; Pareto frontiers; saturation capacity; sustainable capacity
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Author's Biography
Paola Di Mascio has been an Associate Professor of Road, Railways and Airports at the ‘Sapienza’, University of Rome, at DICEA — Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering since 1998. Her teaching activity includes ‘airport Infrastructures’ for Civil Engineering and Aeronautic Engineering Master’s degree and ‘transport infrastructures’ for the Transport Engineering System Master’s degree. She is Coordinator of the PhD course ‘Infrastructures and Transportation’, at the Sapienza University of Rome. She is involved in several national and international researches on pedestrian mobility, road safety, airport safety, design, construction and maintenance of roads and airport. She is the author of more than 150 articles on conference proceedings and international and national reviews.
Damiano Cervelli is an Aeronautical Engineer graduate from the Sapienza University of Rome. During the internship period for his Master’s degree at ENAV S.p.a (the Italian ANSP), he worked on airport capacity studies using highly specific tools. He currently works as a Navigation Systems Engineer in Thales Alenia Space based in Rome.
Alessandro Comoda Correra is a civil engineer, specialising in infrastructures, with technical knowledge of geotechnical, hydraulic and structural engineering. During his master’s degree graduation thesis, Alessandro attended a training internship at the Italian national flight assistance agency’s consulting, performance and capacity department. He has a specialist knowledge of aeronautics and the air traffic control sector. He can study airport capacity via Fast Time Simulation using AirTOp software.
Luca Frasacco is an Air Traffic Control Officer of the Italian Air Navigation Service Provider (ENAV), with over 20 years of operational experience as Air Traffic Controller first in the military and civilian airports and then in Italian Area Control Centers. Since 2003, he has been Head of the ENAV spa Fast Time Team.
Eleonora Luciano is an Air Traffic Management Engineer of the Italian air navigation service provider (ENAV), with over 16 years of experience in the Aviation market specialising in Airport Capacity enhancement; her experience spans major Italian and worldwide airports. Eleonora has used fast-time simulation and other analysis tools since 2003. She has experience in project and technical management, business development, strategic planning, technology innovation, capability building initiatives and other performance enhancements processes. Her experience includes working with multidisciplinary and multi-cultural project teams and international customers/organizations and possesses excellent analytic, organisational and realisation skills developed in challenging working environments where service safety and reliability are the main business drivers. Her broad portfolio of competencies includes an advanced academic education in aeronautical domains and management.
Laura Moretti in Infrastructure and Transportation, is Researcher of Construction of Road, Railways and Airports at Sapienza University of Rome in the Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering. Her teaching activities include ‘Safety of road works’ for the Civil Engineering and Safety Engineering Master’s degree, ‘Design of transportation during emergency’ for the Safety Engineering Master’s degree, ‘Civil infrastructures’ for Techniques for the Surveyor for the Construction and Land bachelor’s degree, ‘Concrete pavements’ for the Construction and Management of Airports second level master’s degree. She is involved in several national research projcts on life cycle assessment, green public procurement, airport safety, environmental impact, design, construction and maintenance of roads and airport. She is the author of more than 60 articles on conference proceedings and international journals; she has also carried out international and national reviews. She is a member of the reviewer board of Materials and currently is guest editor of the special issue ‘Toward Sustainability: Airport Risk Assessment’ in the journal Sustainability. She is also a member of the scientific committees for several scientific conferences.
Stefano Nichele graduated in Civil Engineering from the University of Padua, Italy. He holds a Master’s degree in Civil Aviation Management from Sapienza University of Rome. His main research interests concern the management of air traffic, optimisation of airport capacity and safety procedures for air traffic management. After experience with a major Italian aerodrome operator, he carried out research and teaching activities about transport infrastructures for the Civil Engineering Master’s degree at Sapienza University of Rome. He is a co-author of papers on conference proceedings and international journals. He is currently a permanent member of the technical staff at Sapienza University of Rome.
