System Analysis and Modelling in Air Transport

Demand, Capacity, Quality of Services, Economic, and Sustainability

Milan Janić

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000227512
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Data Modelling & Design
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This book presents a comprehensive analysis and modelling of demand, capacity, quality of services, economics, and sustainability of the air transport system and its main components - - airports, airlines, and ATC/ATM (Air Traffic Control/Management). Airports consist of the airside and landside area characterized by their capacities for handling demand such as aircraft, air passengers, and air freight/cargo shipments. Regarding spatial configuration, airlines generally operate hub-and-spoke (conventional or legacy airlines) and point-to-point (LCCs - Low Cost Carriers) air route networks. Their fleets consisting of different aircraft types provide transport capacity for serving demand including air passengers and freight/cargo shipments. The ATC/ATM includes the controlled airspace, traffic management and control facilities and equipment on the ground, space, and on board aircraft, and the ATC Controllers). They all provide capacity to handle demand consisting of the flights between origin and destination airports carried out by airline aircraft. The outcome from the interrelationships between demand and capacity at these components materializes as the quality of services. At airports and airlines this is generally expressed by congestion and delays of aircraft, air passengers, and freight/cargo shipments. At ATC/ATM, this is expressed by delays, horizontal and vertical in-efficiency, and safety of flights. Economics of each component relate to its revenues, costs, and profits from handling demand, i.e., providing services of given quality. The sustainability of air transport system has become increasingly important issue for many internal and external actors/stakeholders involved to deal with. This has implied increasing the system's overall social-economic effects/benefits while reducing or maintaining constant impacts/costs on the environment and society at both global and regional/local scale under conditions of continuous medium- to long term growth.

Chapter 1
Introduction

1.1 Air Transport System

The air transport system is a sub-system of the transport system which includes road, rail, and intermodal inland and the barge and sea water transport. The system generally consists of three main components—airports, airlines, and ATC/ATM (Air Traffic Control/Management) sub-systems. Each of these generally consist of two major components—demand and supply/capacity. The airport demand consists of users, i.e., air passengers, freight/cargo shipments, mail, and airline aircraft. The airport supply/capacity includes the ground infrastructure in terms of space, facilities and equipment arranged in the airport airside and landside area. Airports also provide the physical connection between air and other ground transport modes (Horonjeff and McKelvey, 1994; Janic, 2000; Janic, 2009). The airline demand consists of users, i.e., air passengers, freight/cargo shipments, and mail. The airline supply/capacity is represented by the aircraft of different payload capacities and range performing flights to serve demand. The ATC/ATM sub-system’s demand consists of the airline flights carried out in the controlled airspace between airports. The ATC/ATM sub-system’s supply/capacity is provided by the ground, space, and on-board facilities and equipment considered (ultimately) as some kind of “infrastructure” together with the controlled (Janić, 2000; ICAO, 2016). Consequently, in the given context, the aircraft have two roles in the air transport system: first, they appear as the airline supply/capacity while performing flights, i.e., transport services to users; second, these flights appear as demand for airports and ATC/ATM (Janić, 2000). The three sub-systems operate according to the internal and external national and international regulations by engaging highly trained personnel/employees of different profiles and levels of expertise aiming at serving demand door-to-door generally safely, efficiently, and effectively. In addition, they consume different types of energy/fuel for their operations.

The main performances of airports, airlines, and the ATC/ATM sub-system as the subjects of further consideration, i.e., analyzing and modelling, are their demand and supply/capacity, their relationships materialized as the quality of services provided to the above-mentioned users, economics, and sustainability, and the latest in terms of the effects and impacts on the environment and society. Figure 1.1 shows the scheme of consideration of the above-mentioned air transport sub-systems.

Figure 1.1 Scheme of consideration of the air transport system.

• Demand is characterized by volume, time, and spatial characteristics, in this case air transport services, to be provided during a given period of time under given conditions.
• Supply/Capacity is defined as the capability of the air transport system’s sub-systems to produce a certain volume of services in order to satisfy the above-mentioned expected volumes of demand during a given period under given conditions.
• Quality of services is defined as the users’ satisfaction with the consumed/used services. Because both production and consumption of transport services in the air transport system occur simultaneously, the rate of consumer satisfaction can be estimated only after the end of these processes. In such context, the relationship between demand and capacity, and consequently the resulting quality of service, can be different. For example, when the demand is constant in space and time, the quality of service can be increased simply by increasing the capacity of particular subsystems and their components. However, when the demand fluctuates considerably and grows unpredictably, augmentation of the capacity may only be sufficient to sustain the quality of service at the previous/benchmarking level (Manheim, 1979).
• Economics refers to the costs, revenues, and profits of providing air transport services. Generally, production of a larger quantity of services with higher capacity imposes higher total cost on producer(s), and vice versa. The services of a higher quality also cost more. For example, the flights carried out by larger aircraft along the longer routes will in total cost more than otherwise. In addition, if the number of flights increases, their total costs will be higher. However, in many cases, the average cost per service will decrease if the total volume of produced services increases. For example, the average unit cost per passenger- and/or seat-kilometer will be lower if the larger aircraft fly along the longer (non-stop) routes. Also, at particular airports, the average unit cost per service will be lower if the total volume of services increases, and vice versa. Decreasing of the average unit cost with increasing of the volumes of output has been generally defined as “economies of scale” and “economies of density”. Both phenomena have proven to be inherent characteristics of the air transport system and its above-mentioned sub-systems. The prices of air transport services are usually set up according to different criteria, though the basic one has been recovering the operators’ costs. The others have been maximizing the passenger welfare, keeping the existing and instigating additional air travel demand, etc. (Janić, 2000).
• Sustainability can be considered as increasing positive effects/benefits of own and overall social-economic welfare and mitigating impacts/costs on the environment and society during the medium- to long-term period under conditions of continuous system growth. The own welfare implies the air transport syste...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Preface
• Contents
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Airports
• 3. Airlines
• 4. ATC/ATM (Air Traffic Control/Management)
• 5. Sustainability of Air Transport System
• Summary
• Index