Modeling the Impact of the A380 on Airport Capacity 8 th December 2009 Alexander Donaldson
Motivation - Operations The A380 adds typically seats 450-525 passengers compared to 416 in a 747-400 Configurations with up to 840 passengers (Air Austral) are on order The A380 requires increased wake vortex separation over other Heavy aircraft Given these constraints, under what conditions does the A380 provide a net increase in the passenger per hour capacity of a runway? 2
Motivation A380 Entry into Service 20 A380s delivered SN T#0*K#.*#1 U+@=0@*00#B)V.B#.1 182 unfulfilled orders remaining RN QN Slow delivery rate (so far) 2008: 12 deliveries 2009: 8 deliveries Aircraft orders spread across Europe, Middle East and Asia 5=3F#.)-@)/*.:.'@$ PN ON %N N!*+(',-.#)/*.0*+#1 23*.'$#1 4/56/!)/*.7'81 /*.)9.'+:#);<.-=,#>?=@$"'+1' A.*$*1")/*.7'81 2$*"'B)/*.7'81 C?9D E-.#'+)/*.) &#+#.F'+('+)G'0'81*')A#."'B);G/!> 6"'*)/*.7'81)C+$#.+'$*-+'0 H*.(*+)/$0'+$*:)/*.7'81 D"*+')!-=$"#.+)/*.0*+#1 E*+(@*1"#.)/*.0*+#1 4'$'.)/*.7'81) /*.)/=1$.'0I /*.F=1)2J#:=$*K#)L)&.*K'$#)M#$1 3
London Heathrow (LHR) Chosen as the baseline airport International hub airport Significant number of A380 operations expected Extensive operational data available Arrivals and departures segregated by law Simplifies modeling Airport is almost always operating at close to capacity during the day 4
New York JFK (JFK) U.S. airport included in study to test: Effect of generally smaller aircraft in the traffic mix More conservative FAA A380 separation standards Model the airport operating two mixed-mode independent parallel runways 5
Dubai International (DXB) Emirates Airlines large (58 aircraft) A380 order means the airport will handle many of the type in the coming years DXB operates using ICAO separation requirements The aircraft mix at DXB is predominantly heavy I CHANGES: Twyr. I 8 JEPPESEN SANDER%M, INC., 1007. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 6
Capacity Model Runway capacity model presented in class was extended to predict runway capacity in terms of passengers per hour A380 operations were modeled by changing a percentage of Heavy operations to A380s Model was run with up to half of heavy operations converted to A380s T pax,ij = T ij c i C pax = where: K i=1 3600(n r ) K j=1 (p ij T pax,ij ) T ij = Average time between category i and j aircraft c i = Average passenger capacity of category i aircraft n r = Number of runways p ij = Probability of i followed by j pair of arrivals 7
Capacity Model Inputs Approach Length (r) Number of Runways(n r ) Separation (s ij ) Approach Velocity (v i ) Aircraft Mix (p ij ) Arrival Occupancy Time (o a ) Departure set-up time for (o d1 ) Departures roll time (o d2 ) Passenger Capacity (c i ) LHR JFK DBX 4 n.m. UK CAA[8] 5 n.m. FAA[9] 5 n.m. Assumed 1 segregated 2 mixed independent UK CAA (Table 1c) 2008 Flight Timetable (4 week sample) Not Needed Not Needed US FAA (Table 1d) ICAO (Table 1b) Based only on Boeing aircraft in schedule 2008 ETMS Database (4 week sample) Based on data from LHR Study 45 s (Assumed) 60 s (Assumed) 2004 Annual Operations Aircraft manufacturer data for typical multi-class configuration 8
Separation Criteria ICAO guidance revised just after the A380 entered service Leading (a) Initial ICAO Guidance Following A380 H M S A380 R 10 10 10 H R 4 5 6 M R R R 5 L R R R R Leading (b) Nov. 2009 ICAO Guidance Following A380 H M S A380 R 6 7 8 H R 4 5 6 M R R R 5 L R R R R (c) United Kingdom CAA (d) United States FAA Leading Following A380 H UM LM S L A380 4 6 7 7 7 8 H 4 4 5 5 6 7 UM R R 3 4 4 6 LM R R R R 3 5 S R R R R 3 4 L R R R R R R Leading Following A380 H B757 M L A380 6 6 8 8 10 H R 4 5 5 6 B757 R 4 4 4 5 M R R R R 4 L R R R R R R denotes only radar separation is required, assumed to be 2.5 n.m. in this study FAA guidance remains the most conservative 9
Airport Comparison Passenger throughput increases in all cases Increase is marginal for low volume configurations at JFK and LHR Good news for Airbus! A move to B747-400 aircraft would however yield an even higher increase in passenger throughput (dotted lines) Bad news for Airbus? High - A380 configured with 525 seats Low - A380 configured with 450 seats 747 Boeing 747-400 with 416 seats 10
Separation Criteria Comparison Using LHR operations only, the study investigated the effect of different separation criteria Using ICAO interim guidance for scheduled operations would have been costly Passenger throughput using FAA separation requirements is sensitive to A380 seating configuration 11
Conclusions In most cases the A380 provides a modest increase in runway passenger throughput Low density A380 configurations have a marginal or detrimental impact on passenger throughput Airports could seek to disincentivize such operations? A380 operations come at the cost of reducing throughput of the runway in terms of operations There is likely to be an equilibrium point between the number of A380 operations and the number of feeder operations at a hub airport A move to fewer, higher-capacity flights leads to higher variability in passenger arrival rate This may put strain on the airport terminal infrastructure 12
Questions & Comments? 13