Impact of Runway Capacity on Flight Efficiency and Delay
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives Of Study
The Aim of this project is to study the currently available airport infrastructures, there effects on flight Arrival delay at Murtala Muhammed airport and to proffer solution to best manage this Arrival delays.
The objectives of this research is as follows
- To study the available airport infrastructure in Murtala Muhammed airport.
- To relate these available airport infrastructure to arrival delay by creating and testing hypothetical statements (hypotheses).
- Proffer possible solution to the Arrival delay at Murtala Muhammed airport.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Discussion of Flight Delay
Flight delay is a complex phenomenon, because it can be due to problems at the origin airport, at the destination airport, or during airborne. A combination of these factors often occurs. Delays can sometimes also be attributable to airlines. Some flights are affected by reactionary delays, due to late arrival of previous flights. These reactionary delays can be aggravated by the schedule operation. Flight schedules are often subjected to irregularity. Due to the tight connection among airlines resources, delays could dramatically propagate over time and space unless the proper recovery actions are taken. Even if complex, flight delays are nowadays measurable. And there exist some pattern of flight delay due to the schedule performance and airline itself (Wu, 2005). Some results extracted from the case study of Orlando International Airport (MCO) can help to better understand the phenomenon.
Two government agencies keep air traffic delay statistics in the United States. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) compiles delay data for the benefit of passengers. They define a delayed flight when the aircraft fails to release its parking brake less than 15 minutes after the scheduled departure time. The FAA is more interested in delays indicating surface movement inefficiencies and will record a delay when an aircraft requires 15 minutes or longer over the standard taxi-out or taxi-in time (Mueller, et al., 2002).
Generally, flight delays are the responsibility of the airline. Each airline has a certain number of hourly arrivals and departures allotted per airport. If the airline is not able to get all of its scheduled flights in or out each hour, then representatives of the airline will determine which flights to delay and which flights to cancel (from http://www.travelforecast.com ).
These delays take one of three forms, ground delay programs, ground stops, and general airport delays. When the arrival demand of an airport is greater than the determined capacity of the airport, then a ground delay program may be instituted. The airport capacity is unique to each airport, given the same weather conditions. The various facilities at an airport can determine how much traffic an airport can handle during any given weather event. Generally, ground delay programs are issued when inclement weather is expected to last for a significant period of time. These programs limit the number of aircraft that can land at an affected airport. Because demand is greater than the aircraft arrival capacity, flight delays will result.
Second, ground stops are issued when inclement weather is expected for a short period of time or the weather at the airport is unacceptable for landing. Ground stops mean that traffic destined to the affected airport is not allowed to leave for a certain period of time.
Lastly, there are general arrival and departure delays. This usually indicates that arrival traffic is doing airborne holding or departing traffic is experiencing longer than normal taxi times or holding at the gate. These could be due to a number of reasons, including thunderstorms in the area, a high departure demand, or a runway change. Our research finds that arrival and departure delays are highly correlated. Correlation between arrival and departure delays is extremely high (around 0.9 for 2002 and 2003). This finding is useful to prove that congestion at destination airport is to a great extent originated at the departure airport.
In order to understand flight delay, it is useful to consider the phenomenon of scheduled delay. The simplest way of reducing delays is not to increase the speed and efficiency of the system to meet the scheduled time, but to push back the scheduled time to absorb the system delays.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS
Data analytical tools
To analyze the data generated a queue theory model was developed and used to calculate aircraft delays, airport capacity utilizations and runways headway for the airport in particular to know the causes of delays (if any) and the deviation(s) from achieving optimal capacity utilization levels (for airport and runways), and the installed runway headway. Mega Stat program was used for time series analysis to forecast domestic air transportation demand for the next ten years.
Limits and limitations
The research work is limited to the domestic air transportation traffic to and from airports within Nigeria as well as study of airport facilities in the country. However, due the vast size of the country, cost and time constraint restricted the study to just the few airports that are carefully selected to cover major hubs and all the regions in the country where primary data were gathered allowing the collection of secondary data from Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), National Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and National Airspace Management Agency (NAMA). The selected airport for primary data collection was MMA Lagos.
Aircraft movement and runway usage
The movement pattern of aircrafts was illustrated and this revealed the number of aircrafts that flies in and out of airports. From Figure 3, it is obvious that aircraft traffic is higher during the day than at night. The night flights are usually long distance international flights and all domestic flight that are scheduled take place during the day.
The headway calculated from data showed that Lagos is the busiest with an aircraft arriving every seven minutes. The installed capacity is five minutes interval so one might think the airport is under-utilized. However, during it busiest hours in the day (0800 hour – 1700 hour) the headway was as low as two minutes thirty seconds. This is dangerous and was the cause of the crash of Aviation Development Company ADC Airline into the Lagos Lagoon in Ejirin, The airline was trying to avoid head-on collision with an aircraft that was taking off on the running northwards instead of southwards . Airlines should be discouraged from fixing schedules too closely with one another and when accepting flight plans airport operators should cross check domestic operators with those of international operators to make sure a safe distance is kept between each arrivals and departures respectively.
CHAPTER FOUR
SUMMARY AND FINDING
SUMMARY AND FINDINGS
This study has considered the issue of domestic air network structure, aircraft movement, airports’ capacity utilization, assessment of airport services and facilities:
Study discovered that there two main types of domestic air networks in Nigeria: major and minor domestic air network. The major air network connects the main airports in Nigeria namely: Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, Calabar and Owerri with majority of the airlines flying to these airports
- An airport can easily be rated by the level of comfort, convenience and security enjoyable at the airport’s lounge. The lounge is where passengers wait before being called to board flights. Some airlines have their personal lounges particularly those offering international services. Airlines running domestic flights in Nigeria do not operate personal lounges hence the study only asked question about the airport’s lounge in the different airports where this study was carried out.
- Apart from the hub station, traffic flow through each other point is low in most cases and this tends to make station costs proportionately higher than they would be with a more even and bigger flow.
- Weather will be a vital consideration at the central station (airport), for since the majority of the routes start and finish at this point, bad weather at the hub will affect most of the airline schedules has its in Kano.
- Most domestic flight operations takes place during the day and most are closely packed together indicating a daily peak and off-peak periods. The peak periods are in the mornings and in the evenings but some airports like Lagos do have a single peak period that extends from 7 o’clock am to 8 o’clock pm. The effect of the crowded peak time flights that airport’s headways are significantly lowered and this can be dangerous for flight safety. For example, Lagos has an installed headway of 5 min between successive take-offs and landings but during the peak period the headway could be as low as 2.5 min.
CHAPTER FIVE
RECOMMENDATIONS
In the light of the results of this study, the following recommendations are made to policy-makers that might be of assistance in planning for a sound and efficient air transportation system:
- Due to the fact that most airlines have few aircrafts it becomes very difficult to fly out from many airports. Hence most use Lagos as the hub of their operations. There is a danger in this type of operation as bad weather in the hub region will lead to a disruption all flights to the hub from other airports.
- National Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), National Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). should ensure that flights schedules are spread out as much as possible to avoid congestion of traffic and its associated problems.
- Airlines should encourage the purchase of their tickets to be done away from the airports and possibly online to reduce handling cost at the airports in particular and total cost of operations in general.
REFERENCES
- Abdelghany, K. F., Abdelghany, A. F., and Raina S., (2004) A model for projecting flight delays during irregular operation conditions, Journal of Air Transport Management, Volume 10, Issue 6, Pages 385-394
- Aisling, R., and J.B. Kenneth, (1999) An assessment of the capacity and congestion levels at European airports, ERSA conference papers ersa 99, pages 241, European Regional Science Association.
- Allan, S.S., S.G. Gaddy, and J.E. Evans, (2001) Delay Causality and Reduction at the
- New York City Airports Using Terminal Weather Information, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Lexington, Massachusetts
- Allison, P. D., (1999) Logistic Regression using the SAS System, John Wiley & Sons,Inc,
- Ashford and Wright, (1992) Airport Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, Inc,
- Bubalo B (2009). “Benchmarking Airport Productivity and the Role of Capacity Utilization.” Thesis submitted to University of Applied Sciences Berlin.
