What is the airport capacity?

The airport capacity is that of the weakest link

Airport capacity overall
The airport’s capacity is that of the weakest link in the airport chain: terminal airspace,
runway system, taxiways, aircraft parking areas, terminal (passenger processing) and
even airport access (access roads and car parks). The capacity must therefore be
subject to an overall analysis.

Capacity of the runway system

The runway system is in general the element that limits airport capacity due to its
particular function: enabling aircraft to land and take-off safely. Its capacity takes three
main elements into account:

 the structure of the air traffic;

 the traffic’s management by the air navigation service;
 the composition of the infrastructure.

As a general rule, the structure of the air traffic is not a result but rather a constituent
datum of capacity. The traffic structure is the result basically of the air transport market,
unless the infrastructures are saturated or the traffic is limited by the capacity. The
structure of air traffic is characterized by the flight distribution (peak times, traffic
density), by type of aircraft (dependent on the weight and geometrical dimensions) and
by the distribution between arrivals and departures. These parameters generate
significant traffic flow constraints.
The traffic management modes (or modes of feeding the runway system) by the air
navigation service, taking wake turbulence into account, imposing in-flight and ground
spacing constraints that have a direct impact on the capacity.
The traffic flow fluency also depends on the structure of the terminal’s airspace (volume
and sectoring, arrival and departure route network, etc.), on the technical instruments
(radar image and precision, flight sequencing assistance tools, etc.), on the methods in
force (organization of arrival and departure flows, use of a “specialized” or “integrated”
runway system in the case of a pair of parallel runways, air traffic rules, safety margins,
etc.) and on the management of control post setting.
The capacity can be limited by constraints due to noise pollution or by shared use of the
same terminal airspace by several airports (for example, Nice and Cannes). It can also
be affected by certain atmospheric conditions (rain, snow, black ice, poor visibility),
which can severely reduce traffic flow.
Finally, the ground infrastructure is the determinant but not unique element of the
theoretical capacity. The number of runways, taxiways and their layout have a direct
impact on the number of aircraft it is possible to deal with and therefore on capacity.

Definitions of capacity
Technical capacity
This is the number of requests that can be dealt with in a period of time with a given
infrastructure, by adhering to the regulation and taking a service quality level into
account.
Requests can also correspond either to a number of movements on a runway or to the
occupation rate of parking spaces or to the use of de-icing pads, etc.
The time period can range from a minute to a year depending on the problem being
dealt with.
Determination of the technical capacity depends:

 on a given traffic point characterized by its duration and its structure (type of
aircraft, mix of arrivals/departures);
 on runway system use practices, which depend on the quality of its feeding, on
the safety margins;
 on a service quality level (average flight delay) acceptable to operators.
Declared capacity
It sets the maximum traffic flow an airport is able to accept, taking all elements of the
airport chain into account (terminal airspace, runway system, taxiways, parking areas,
terminal, road and rail access) as well as certain external constraints (environment).
This is a value representing a stated objective of the airport. It is necessarily less than
or equal to the technical capacity.
In the coordinated airports (Orly, Paris-CdG, Lyon, Nice), we introduced the notion of
scheduling capacity, which is a variant of declared capacity. It enables a time
committee, which meets every six months, to assign slots to airline companies. This
procedure guarantees operators a quality service but reduces the airport’s accessibility.

The relationship between hourly capacity and annual

capacity
The airport’s annual capacity is the maximum volume of traffic that can be handled
during one year, taking into account an “overall” quality of service including a tax rate
acceptable to airline operators and external constraints (curfew, for example). It is
generally expressed in number of passengers or movements per year.
Annual capacity is related to operational hourly capacity, but this relationship varies
across airports based primarily on the distribution of peak hours during the day and
peak days in the year. Thus, with equal operational capacities, an airport that
continuously receives a mix of short, medium and long-haul traffic during the day will
have an annual capacity greater than that of an airport with short or medium-haul traffic
at two daily peak times. In addition, comparisons in numbers of passengers must take
into account the average aircraft size, to be re-expressed in numbers of aircraft
movements. The average load (average number of passengers per movement) is
indeed very different depending on the site.

Airport Operational Capacity and its Corresponding Demand

The infrastructure capacity is one of the most important parameter in determining the operational
and planning of an airport. There are various concepts of capacity exists, which are distinguished
in reliance with dominant factors impeding the capacity. Broadly, there can be operational,
economic and environmental factors (Caves and Gosling, 1999; Janic, 2001a). Generally, these
may function together, but in majority of the cases only one factor dominates and determines the
airport capacity. To understand the concepts first let us outline the basic meaning of capacity and
their elements in bottlenecking the capacity problems at the airport. Capacity refers to the ability
of an airport to handle a given volume or magnitude of traffic (demand) within a specific period
of time. In other words, the operational capacity is generally expressed by the maximum number
of units of demand that can be accommodated at an airport during given period of time and under
given conditions. Capacity measures can be done on Maximum Throughput Rate (MTR) and
Level of Service (LOS) related capacity. MTR is defined as the ‘average number of demands a
server can process per unit of time when always busy’. In empirical notion

μ = 1/E (t)
Where μ = Maximum Throughput Rate E (t) = Expected service time Level of service (LOS)
related capacity is measured through the number of demands processed per unit of time while
meeting some pre-specified LOS standards (must know μ to compute). Airport Capacity
Categorization Airport capacity planning is categorized into four types, namely – ‰ Theoretical
Capacity ‰ Potential Capacity ‰ Practical Capacity & ‰ Operational Capacity
Theoretical Capacity is defined as ‘ the maximum number of aircraft that the airport is able to process
per unit of time without considering the quality of services’. Potential Capacity is defined as ‘ the
maximum number of aircraft that the airport is able to process per unit of time for given levels of
demand (arrivals)’.

Practical Capacity is defined as ‘ the maximum number of aircraft which can be processed per unit of
time for a given mean delay level’. Operational Capacity is defined as ‘ the maximum number of aircraft
which can be processed per unit of time for a given maximum delay’
Airport Economic Capacity

The airport economic capacity is defined by the economic conditions, which may significantly influence
the number of units of demand accommodated at an airport in both short and long term, during a given
period of time (one hour or per year). In the short-term, the charges of an airport services during the
peak and off-peak hours determine the economic conditions. This set up is maintained to balance
between demands and supply (capacity) under given market conditions (regulation). In, general, the
charges reflects airport operating costs on the one side and on the other side, characteristics of demand
in terms of type of users and their willingness to pay for services.