What are some strategies and tools for airport capacity planning and demand management?

Strategies and tools for airport capacity planning and demand management include using Airport Collaborative Decision-Making (A-CDM) systems, implementing slot coordination, optimizing runway and gate allocation, and employing passenger flow simulations. Additionally, advanced analytics, data-driven decision-making, and regular assessments of capacity constraints help airports efficiently manage demand and ensure seamless operations.

Airport capacity is an airport's ability to accommodate traffic in a set period of time. The capacity may differ from one area/zone to another. However, the first activity that can stagger all flight movements is the Runway capacity. Airports that instate new aircraft parking stands or expand/build passenger terminal buildings will need to synchronize capacities or a bottleneck will occur. It's also important to work hand-in-hand with other industries that may greatly influence the airport's demand (air traffic movement and passenger movement). For example, if the tourism industry is aiming to target 20m visitors anually when your airport's annual capacity is 16m, you are simply planning to fail.

Airport capacity is comprised of a series of tightly coupled processes associated with physical airport infrastructure (runways, stands, gates, baggage systems etc), passenger management (security/border control) and airline operator efficiency (turnaround) that means airport capacity is only as strong as the airport system's 'weakest link'. External influences of weather, network airspace capacity and feeding departure/destination airport efficiency plays a part. Whilst all these factors are common at busy airports, these will dictate the effective capacity delivered. This therefore also raises the significant need for system resiliance and recovery in the event of any of these tightly coupled processes failing or falling short.

Les experts de l’aéronautique raisonnent capacité de piste et contraintes techniques. Je rajouterai l’acceptabilité des riverains tant sur le plan du bruit que de la pollution. La satisfaction des clients eux-mêmes qui perdent leur temps dans tout ce qui tourne autour de l’aéroport ! Dont la circulation, souvent dramatique, les prix des parkings également. Alors, il faudrait cibler pour que chaque aéroport optimise ses missions, avec des priorités sur les clients qu’il veut obtenir et progresser sur sa RSE. Enfin les nouvelles méthodes de partage par exemple de e-véhicules et de zéro carbone sur les routes autour de l’aéroport. Quant à l’aviation à zéro carbone ce sera long hélas. Alors une approche plus globale ! Exemplaire…

Today, capacity planning is often linked to the airport's strategy department. It's essential to consider the airport's capacity during projects / initiatives, and it's equally vital to assess the impact of such projects on the airport's capacity post-implementation. Other than bottlenecks and lower service standards, neglecting demand forecasts and planning accordingly is a huge setback in terms of excessive spending. It's also critical for both operations and commercial to work together. Operational expertise can identify bottlenecks, assess impact of projected demand on current capacity and find innovative long/short term solutions. Whereas commercial have visibility on airlines suspending/inaugurating flights to/from the airport.

For an airport, forecasting is essential as it's an integral factor when deciding corporate directions. However, it's important to note that there are many variables in play when forecasting passenger movements. These include occassions, population/GDP growth, tourism targets, inflation, and other global events (such as COVID-19, war/conflict, etc.) Our approach was to develop a forecast logic for passengers during normal operations (flight profiles created based on historical data/trends), and amend this logic during occassions depending on when we expect passenger activities. Passenger behavior is also essential, and we conduct periodical forecast accuracy checks to continuously improve the logic while always exploring ways to improve.

The first and most important tool is data analysis. In order to successfully anticipate and take the most suitable decision, data is the core. In order to optimize resources, processes or even aircraft slot allocations, we first need data to identify what can be improved. Solutions will then be made through Data-Driven Decision Making (DDDM), where decisions taken solely based on one's opinion is no longer the case. In order to optimize an airport's capacity, there are many tools available such as the Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) system with 16 common aircraft turnaround milestones. However, a culture change is required before utilizing such tools and introducing data-driven solutions to people who might never use data.

It may be worth noting that not all airports operate in the same manner. Heathrow for example operates near its peak capacity for the duration of the operating day whereas others (especially in the US) that host a dominant airline operator(s) operate more as a 'hub' source for arrival/departures. This offers definitive peaks and troughs of demand throughout the day with naturally occurring 'fire-breaks' to cater for any minor network perturbation of demand flow. Therefore strategic solutions for these differing operating models may vary for: system capacity, efficiency, resilience & recovery. Therefore one size solutions won't always fit all.