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Abstract

The central purpose of this thesis is to provide a means of planning the use of aircraft parking positions (stands) at major airports, to the mutual benefit of airlines and airport authorities.

The methods used to relate capacity and demand in any context, depend to a large extent on the time scale being studied and the detail in which the relationship must be defined.

The terminal area capacity, or number of stands, which must be provided to satisfy a given flight schedule obviously depends on the Utilisation which can be achieved on each stand. This, together with projected flight arrival rates can provide a long term guide to the total requirement, which can be used by the airport authority in its long term investment programme. From an airline point of view, much more detail is required and the problem is transposed so that it tends to become "What effect does the availability of X number of gates have on our projected schedule?"

The flight schedule is easily translated into a ground timetable and the minimum stand requirement can be calculated. If this is more than X, an amendment to the schedule or to X is unavoidable, but when the requirement is less than, or equal to X, the answer to the above question has remained unquantified.

This is due in the main to a lack of knowledge concerning the effect of unpunctual flight movements on stand requirements.

The thesis attempts to quantify this effect and to ascertain the optimum allocation policies to be used when converting a scheduled ground time into an operational stand plan.
Parameters are identified to enable such stand plans to be defined and compared. The effect of flight disruptions are estimated by simulation and the effect of different stand plans on the overall operation is estimated.

As a result, airlines have the capacity of estimating the real effect of a given number of stands, and the airport authority can set realistic utilisation targets for the areas under its
control.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	T Technology > T Technology (General) T Technology > TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Department of Engineering School of Science & Technology > School of Science & Technology Doctoral Theses Doctoral Theses

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