A large neighborhood search heuristic to establish an optimal ad-hoc hubbing strategy in the wake of a large-scale airport outage

Abrupt airport outages can cause diversions and fuel-critical situations for flights, leading to costly passenger misconnections. We develop a large neighborhood search heuristic to optimize the rerouting of flights bound for a disrupted airport to a hub airport that is not disrupted, with the goal of accommodating passengers on existing flights departing the non-disrupted hub. The objective of the heuristic is to identify and reroute flights to the ad-hoc hub(s) – non-disrupted hub airport(s) – that minimize the sum of passenger travel time and wait time. We minimize the passenger cost as the sum of passenger travel time to the diversion airport and wait time for a connecting flight at the ad-hoc hub airport, subject to on-board fuel and diversion airport capacity constraints. We use the heuristic to determine how a coordinated traffic management strategy could have diverted flights immediately following a real-world airport outage.     

Airport choice and flight connectivity among domestic and international passengers – Empirical analysis using passenger movement survey data in Japan

This paper presents an empirical analysis of airport choice and passenger movement on international flights from local cities in Japan to Narita and Haneda Airports in the Tokyo metropolitan area. This is the first study to evaluate airport choice behavior in Japan empirically by using the micro data collected by Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in 2010 (i.e., when time slots for international long-haul flights were first assigned at Haneda). The analysis confirms that flight connectivity is a crucial element in airport choice.Further, Japanese airlines and their associated alliances are able to attract passengers arriving from local cities by using Haneda airport. Above all, we find that the introduction of long-haul international flights from Haneda has met the needs of a number of passengers arriving from local cities in Japan owing to the convenience of the domestic flight network, especially for business purpose passengers.     

Optimising flight connection times in airline bank structure through Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search algorithms

In hub and spoke airline networks, flight arrivals and departures generally have a bank structure to increase connections among spoke cities through a hub airport in order to provide cheaper service for higher volumes of air traffic. In this study, we introduce the airline bank optimisation problem with a novel mathematical model for improving flight connection times. The mathematical model aims to minimise the total connection times for transfer passengers and generates flight schedules regarding slot capacities in the hub airports. Since the problem is a combinatorial optimisation problem NP-hard and computational complexity increases rapidly for real-world problems, we employ the simulated annealing and the tabu search algorithms to achieve better solutions in a reasonable time. We generate sub-problems using real-world data and investigate the effectiveness of the algorithms. Finally, we present the results of a real case study of a Turkish airline company which has a hub airport connecting the flights between Middle Eastern and European cities.     

The sky is the limit? The determinants and constraints of European airports commercial revenues

This study investigates the determinants of commercial and retail airport revenues from real estate operations. Aviation revenues per passenger are mainly determined by the national income per capita in the area where the airport is located, the percentage of leisure travelers and the size of the airport. Main drivers of commercial revenues per passenger include the number of passengers passing through the airport, the ratio of commercial to total revenues, national income, the share of domestic and leisure travelers and the number of flights. These results are in line with previous findings of a negative influence of business travelers on commercial revenues per passenger. We also find that a large amount of retail space per passenger is generally associated with lower commercial revenues per square meter confirming decreasing marginal revenue effects. Real estate revenues per passenger are positively associated with national income per capita at airport location, share of intra-EU passengers and percent delayed flights.     

Optimizing flight equencing and gate assignment considering terminal configuration and walking time

Operating airline hub-and-spoke networks (HSN) rather than direct flights among city pairs may significantly reduce supplier cost; however, passengers' travel time may significantly increase due to increased transfer and in-flight time. The costs considered in this study are hub-related and incurred by passengers and aircraft (i.e., passenger transfer, flight dwelling, and gate occupancy). The objective is to minimize the total cost by optimizing flight sequence (i.e., arrivals and departures) and gate assignment, while considering transfer speed, transfer demand, flight size, gate size and terminal configuration. A real-world HSN whose hub airport (HA) is located at Xianyang International Airport (XIY) in Xi'an, China is analyzed. The optimized solutions and their relations to various model parameters are explored.     

Airline delay management problem with airport capacity constraints and priority decisions

This paper deals with the Airline Delay Management Problem (ADMP), which can be described as the task of dealing with daily airline operational delays and deciding whether to delay subsequent flights at a hub airport or to have them departing on time. An innovative integer linear programming approach is presented to the capacitated case of the ADMP and airport limitations in terms of bay availability, taxiway capacity and runway separation are incorporated to represent capacity constraints. Fuel cost, passenger compensation, and passenger inconvenience costs are included in the objective function. The decision variables include the re-timing of flight departures and arrivals, the use of the airport capacity over time and the rebooking of passengers in case of missed connections. To guarantee the linearity of the optimization model and fast computational times, a receding horizon modeling framework is adopted. The approach is applied to a case study using real operational and passenger data from an international hub-and-spoke carrier. The case study shows the capability of the linear model to deal with a complete day of operations within a few minutes. The results suggest that the proposed approach can lead to cost reductions of almost 30% during recovery, when compared with the solution from the airline. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is provided to investigate the impact of not including passenger inconvenience costs and of reducing runway capacity.     

Whether low-cost-carrier passengers spend more on duty-free goods at the airport? Evidence from Incheon International Airport

With a dramatic growth in the low-cost carrier (LCC) traffic around the world, many airports have built budget terminals to accommodate the LCC flights with cheaper airport charge to the airlines but inferior shopping environment and service quality to the passengers. This study aims to answer the following research questions: i). Whether the LCC passengers have higher purchasing power than FSC (full-service carrier) passengers for the airport concessions, particularly the duty-free goods? ii). Would the budget terminal design contribute to or jeopardize the LCC passengers' airport concession expenditure? iii). How could the airport operator maximize its concession revenue by re-designing terminal or re-allocating flight slots? We collect the actual airport duty-free transaction data from Incheon International Airport (ICN) for an empirical investigation. Our empirical evidence first suggests that LCC passengers could have comparable or even higher purchasing power than FSC passengers in consuming duty-free goods at the airport. Among all the LCC passengers, Chinese have the highest purchasing power. Second, the inferior shopping environment and service quality of budget terminal seriously jeopardize the duty-free sales from the LCC passengers. Third, counterfactual analyses show that, if ICN could convert its budget terminal into a conventional terminal, 44 million USD more duty-free sales can be generated per year. Even keeping the current terminal design, re-allocating the LCC flights between the budget terminal and conventional terminal could bring approximately 4.9 million USD more duty-free sales per year. The findings provide managerial implications to ICN and other airports for effective airport revenue management. First, the budget terminal design may not be ideal to accommodate LCC traffic as it damages the concession revenue from particular LCC passengers with high purchasing power. Second, exploring the concession revenue from the growing LCC traffic could help maintain an airport's advantage in aeronautical charge under single-till regulation.     

Network-wide assessment of ATM mechanisms using an agent-based model

This paper presents results from the SESAR ER3 Domino project. Three mechanisms are assessed at the ECAC-wide level: 4D trajectory adjustments (a combination of actively waiting for connecting passengers and dynamic cost indexing), flight prioritisation (enabling ATFM slot swapping at arrival regulations), and flight arrival coordination (where flights are sequenced in extended arrival managers based on an advanced cost-driven optimisation). Classical and new metrics, designed to capture network effects, are used to analyse the results of a micro-level agent-based model. A scenario with congestion at three hubs is used to assess the 4D trajectory adjustment and the flight prioritisation mechanisms. Two different scopes for the extended arrival manager are modelled to analyse the impact of the flight arrival coordination mechanism. Results show that the 4D trajectory adjustments mechanism succeeds in reducing costs and delays for connecting passengers. A trade-off between the interests of the airlines in reducing costs and those of non-connecting passengers emerges, although passengers benefit overall from the mechanism. Flight prioritisation is found to have no significant effects at the network level, as it is applied to a small number of flights. Advanced flight arrival coordination, as implemented, increases delays and costs in the system. The arrival manager optimises the arrival sequence of all flights within its scope but does not consider flight uncertainties, thus leading to sub-optimal actions.     

Passenger perceptions of service quality: Korean and Australian case studies

This paper investigates air passengers’ perceptions of 11 factors that may influence their buying behaviour namely, in-flight service, reservation-related service, airport service, reliability, employee service, flight availability, perceived price, passenger satisfaction, perceived value, airline image, and overall service quality. Analysis of variance and an independent sample t-test are applied to data collected from Korean and Australian international air passengers. The results reveal that passenger perceptions are significantly different across airlines, seat classes, and usage frequencies.     

Model of passenger behavior choice under flight delay based on dynamic reference point

Flight delay has always been a concern of scholars, but in previous studies, there has been little discussion of passenger behavior choice after flight delay. The paper based on the prospect theory, taking the Beijing-Shanghai route as an example, constructs the passenger behavior choice model under flight delay, and in order to explore the decision-making behavior of passengers with different attributes under different delay scenarios. The results show that the reference point of passengers' behavioral decision-making is dynamic due to different delay scenarios and passengers' attributes. For the same reason, passengers have different behavioral choices when encountering flight delay. Through empirical analysis, it is found that the choice of passengers based on prospect theory is in line with the actual choice of passengers. The choice model proposed in the paper can effectively describe the passenger's choice behavior.     

Modeling the flight departure delay using survival analysis in South Korea

The air transportation industry in South Korea has been growing since the 2000s. Although the number of air passengers has continuously increased, the flight delay rate has fluctuated from year to year. In this study, a survival analysis was conducted to compare each flight delay in terms of airport/time slot and to evaluate the actual impacts of major variables on flight delays. We performed multiple analyses using survival analysis methodologies, including the Kaplan–Meier estimator, log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazards model. In particular, we applied a turnaround buffer as a key variable in Cox proportional hazards model analysis. The survival curve showed that more international flights departed earlier than scheduled or with minimal delay than domestic flights. However, international flights tended to have more long-term delays. The log-rank test indicated that international flights had a wider distribution of delay times than domestic flights. In the Cox proportional hazards analysis, under the condition in which the actual flight turnaround time was less than 120 min, the results indicated that the longer the actual turnaround buffer was, the less frequently the delays occurred. By using these analyses, we could numerically verify the actual delay trends in South Korea. The results can be used as fundamental resources for political and economic decision-making processes in the aviation industry.     

A global model for estimating the block time of commercial passenger aircraft

This paper uses a two-stage statistical model to estimate the block time of commercial passenger aircraft. The model considers many of the factors contributing to airport congestion and provides a basis for future development of multivariate statistical models of the flight operation process. The model is tested using 2 million US domestic flights by six airlines in 2004. Model analysis provided insight regarding the relative impact of weather conditions and airport utilization on block time. In particular, population, arrival time, airport utilization, ice, and the interaction of poor weather conditions and traffic were found to be significant predictors of block time.     

Assessment of passenger benefits brought about by international airport projects

This study sets forth a method to calculate the passenger benefits of an international airport project and assesses the passenger benefits brought about by two international airport projects.An international airport project mainly increases the number of flights and the possibility of determining convenient timetables. It does not significantly decrease the flight time of international travel. Thus, the user benefits brought about by an international airport project cannot be expressed by the conventional concept of ‘traveling time’, which is the term generally used.In this study, the ‘Expected Value of Traveling Time’ and ‘Expected Value of Generalized Cost’ are presented as indexes to evaluate improvements in convenience brought about by international airport projects. The passenger benefits of two airport projects in Japan are measured by consumer surplus calculated from the demand function using these indexes.These indexes are accurately calculated taking into consideration factors such as scheduling connections between domestic and international transport, and so enable a grasp not only of reductions in flight time, but also of passenger benefits resulting from international airport projects, such as increases in the number of flights and reductions in the time required to make transfers during domestic travel.     

The importance of concession revenues in the privatization of airports

We investigate the tradeoff between the airport’s concession and aeronautical revenues—two complementary services. Increasing the frequency of flights may result with congestion which could stimulate demand for concessions, but may also harm the demand for flights. When passengers have a low valuation for the concession good, the opportunity for concession revenue is small and the airport focuses its revenue on the aeronautical (i.e., landing) fees. With a sufficiently large valuation for concession goods, the airport may lower the aeronautical charges to stimulate greater flight frequency in order to lower airfares thereby attracting more passengers ultimately to increase concessions revenues. It is in the latter case where we observe minimal loss of aeronautical welfare when airports are privatized. Thus, our research could help guide decision makers in the airport privatization process. Namely, we find that privatization is not recommended unless the potential for concession revenues is sufficiently large.     

The role of schedule delays on passengers’ choice of access modes: A case study of Japan’s international hub airports

We empirically study passenger modal-choice behavior to access an international hub airport, by using stated preference (SP) data and by constructing a binomial logit model. We found that passenger modal choice is affected by the service level of the access modes: travel time, travel cost, waiting time, and delay cost. The results also indicate that if passengers choose access mode in advance they consider service frequency: departure timing from home, and the arrival timing at the airport. Moreover, our results indicate that travelers’ willingness to pay for saving time differs by time of a day. They are apt to pay more in the morning than in the afternoon. These outcomes must contribute to improve the access flight service from local to hub airports to handle the needs of passengers.     

空铁联运协同下的跨域航空服务网络优化

为解决各机场竞相开设航班所导致的空域航班密度过大及与之相伴的航班延误问题,从需求管理的角度研究空铁联运网络优化及空铁协调下的客运组织问题。在建立由航班、高速铁路和空铁换乘系统构成的复合网络的基础上,以城市圈为区域单元,构建考虑公平性约束和高速铁路对航班喂给条件的上层空铁联运跨域航空服务网络优化模型和下层乘客路径选择模型的双层优化模型,旨在最小化区域间的出行总时间。在实证分析部分,对研究区域进行计算结果分析,并分析公平性指数对区域间运输系统效率的敏感性,为跨域航空服务网络优化研究提供参考依据。     

An Exploratory analysis of flight delay propagation in China

Delay propagation is the flight departure delay caused by the arrival delay of pre-segment flight. Chinese airline market has suffered very poor on-time performance (OTP) in recent years. It is, however, unclear whether delay propagation prevails as one major source for such problem. This study first aims to empirically quantify delay propagation in the Chinese airline market. Specifically, we shed light on heterogenous levels of delay propagations across different airports and airlines. Then, the distinct delay propagation patterns in China are also discussed and compared with other developed airline markets (e.g., the US and Europe). Our estimation is based on OTP data for over 12 million Chinese flights covering the 2015–2017 period. Specifically, it is found that 10 min arrival delay of pre-segment flight within 1 hr before the departure lead to an average of 7.49 mins delay propagation for subsequent departure flight. Arrival delay of earlier pre-segments (1–2 and 2–3 hr before the departure) leads to much less delay propagation, due to longer ground buffer. Chinese airlines arrange longer ground and flight buffer than that of the US airlines to prevent the delay propagation from accumulating along the subsequent flights in a day. Thus, unlike the US market, delay propagation is not the major reason for poor OTP in China. In addition, delay propagation is less prevailing at the Chinese hub airport. This is because China has relied on point-to-point network, which does not require sophisticated schedule coordination. And the local passengers at these Chinese hub airports have higher time value such that the Chinese airlines also try to improve OTP at these hub airports to better serve these lucrative but time-sensitive local passengers. Unlike the European LCCs, Spring Airlines, the largest low-cost carrier (LCC) in China, outperforms major full-service carriers (FSCs) in controlling delay propagation. This finding may also apply to other Northeast Asian LCCs sharing common operational characteristics as Spring Airlines. Last, we find that airlines purposely tolerate moderate departure delays of up to 15 min, which is the threshold that defines delays, no matter whether the pre-segment flight arrives late or on-time. The relevant policy and managerial implications are also discussed.     

The effects of service quality dimensions and passenger characteristics on passenger's overall satisfaction with an airport

The objective of this paper is twofold. First, to identify service quality dimensions related to airports. Second, to examine the effects of those dimensions on passenger's overall satisfaction with an airport together with variables related to passenger characteristics. Data from an extensive survey applied in a main Brazilian international airport were used. Exploratory factor analysis was applied to extract dimensions of airport service quality as perceived by the passengers. The effects on the overall satisfaction level were estimated using a probabilistic approach. Findings underline implications regarding the use of meaningful service dimensions instead of a large set of variables as predictors of passenger satisfaction. Moreover, the study stresses the need for considering how passenger characteristics may be related to different perceived levels of service quality.     

Simulation method for dispatching national border security manpower to mitigate manpower shortage

Recently, a record number of passengers have entered and exited Taiwan from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TTIA). The number of passengers from Taiwan to mainland China has increased largely because of the improvement of cross-strait cultural interaction and other policies, as well as the opening of direct flights. Not only located in the transport hub of the East Asia Taoyuan International Airport is becoming more important and can provide 24 h Airport service, but also airport immigration officers must take 24 h shift to carry out the passenger document inspection requirement, Immigration officers can be fatigued by long shifts, thus negatively affecting border security clearance efficiency and work performance. Consequently, innovative management practices regarding immigration officers are necessary to strengthen international cooperation against terrorism. This study used system simulation Delphi interviews and a heuristic algorithm to determine the required number of airport immigration officers during a fixed passenger waiting time, for improving the efficiency and stability of airport immigration officers who work to consolidate the border security of the country. The results showed that the utilization of airport immigration officers at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is higher than 97.99%, and their work hours have been reduced by more than 54.68%. These results proved that using a system simulation can reduce long work shifts and negligence, which can lead improved border security and airport service quality. Additionally, the simulation results that when the National Immigration Agency and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport implement the biometrics verification system for noncitizens, significant manpower shortages are expected. These shortages can cause complaints from customers and result in a negative image of the quality of airport service. Assigning priority to setting the E-GATE system to compensate for the lack of immigration officers would result in more efficient and effective border security.     

Integrated recovery of aircraft and passengers after airline operation disruption based on a GRASP algorithm

This paper considers the integrated recovery of both aircraft routing and passengers. A mathematical model is proposed based on both the flight connection network and the passenger reassignment relationship. A heuristic based on a GRASP algorithm is adopted to solve the problem. A passenger reassignment solution is demonstrated to be optimal in each iteration for a special case. The effectiveness of the heuristic is illustrated through experiments based on synthetic and real-world datasets. It is shown that the integrated recovery of flights and passengers can decrease both the recovery cost and the number of disrupted passengers.