Airport Scheduling

Nischay Mehra
Hemant Bansal
Tushar Taneja
Kashish Sharma
Introduction

Most flight delays are created by imbalances between demand and capacity at the
busiest airports. Absent large increases in capacity, airport congestion can only be
mitigated through scheduling.
optimizing the airport’s flight schedule at the strategic level and the utilization of
airport capacity at the tactical level .
The capacity utilization part involves controlling the runway configuration and the
balance of arrival and departure service rates to minimize congestion costs.
The schedule optimization reschedules a selected set of flights to reduce the
demand-capacity mismatches while minimizing interference with airline competitive
scheduling.
Scheduling Interventions

Scheduling interventions fall within the realm of airport demand management.

Demand management measures aim at reducing the number of flights scheduled at
peak hours by distributing flights more evenly over the day and, in some cases, by
eliminating some flights.
These are strategic measures that are implemented several months in advance of
the day of operations
. In 2008, limits on the number of movements scheduled per 30 minutes (“flight
caps”) have been imposed at the New York airports. Flight schedules are then
determined through a process similar to what is known worldwide as schedule
facilitation , under which airlines submit their scheduling requests to a schedule
facilitator, who may then propose some scheduling adjustments to reduce
anticipated delays.
Scheduling Process
Capacity utilization

Improved capacity utilization falls within the realm of Air Traffic Flow Management
(ATFM).
ATFM aims at enhancing the efficiency of airport operations by dynamically
optimizing the allocation of airport resources to arriving and departing aircraft, and,
in turn, the flow of aircraft at a given airport or in a network of airports.
These are tactical interventions that are applied over the course of the day of
operations.
Airport gate scheduling

Due to growth of air transport traffic, allocating airline and airport resources have
become increasingly important
There are several classes of decisions for which airport management is responsible
(crew scheduling, ground operations, etc.) → gate scheduling is the most important
and complicated of these
The gate assesment problem

A gate assignment must be suitable for airport services and convenient for
passengers.
Rules and constraints for a well-constructed schedule:
1. one gate can process only one aircraft at the same time
3. minimum ground time and minimum time between subsequent aircraft have to
be assured.
Some objectives:
1. total walking distance for passengers must be minimized
2. the deviation of the current schedule from a reference schedule must be
minimized in order to increase schedule attractiveness and passenger comfort
Airport ground staff scheduling

When an aircraft lands, a significant number of tasks must be performed by different

groups of ground crew, such as fueling, baggage handling and cleaning. These tasks
must be complete before the aircraft is able to depart, as well as check-in and
security services
As airports are in competition to attract airline routes, efficient and reliable ground
handling operations are imperative for the viability and continued growth of both
airports and airlines. The increasing liberalization of the ground handling market
prompts ground handling operators to increase cost effectiveness and deliver fast
and reliable service.
Scheduling active runway crossings

The typical layout of taxiways at airports imply that some aircraft (arrivals) need to
cross a runway that is being used to reach their assigned gates
Such crossings, known as active runway crossings, require the coordination of
runway schedules and taxi schedules
It is desirable to identify gaps in the departure sequence to allow aircraft to cross
active runways, and local controllers try to utilize the relatively large wake-vortex
separation requirement following a Heavy aircraft to schedule runway crossings.
 Ration by Schedule for airport arrival and departure planning and scheduling

• The Ration by Schedule (RBS) algorithm has been accepted by the aviation
community as the basis of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) in strategic
Traffic Flow Management (TFM) initiatives such as Ground Delay Programs
(GDPs) and Airspace Flow Programs (AFPs)
• However, applications of RBS to date have been limited to strategic metering
applications in which the slots to be allocated to flights are all of equal duration,
and the flights to be assigned to slots do not need to be differentiated
• The principles of the RBS algorithm are achieved through an initial planning pass
based on scheduled data, followed by a second planning pass in which dynamic
flight status is incorporated into the planning results
ThankYou