AIRSIDE PERFORMANCE

Reference: Horenjeff, Chapter 8

OUTLINE
• Introduction
• Capacity and Delay
• Factors That Affect Airfield Capacity
• Formulation of Runway Capacity through
Mathematical Theory
• Formulation of Runway Capacity through Time
Space Diagram
Introduction
• Air transportation is focused upon the
movement of aircraft, passengers, ground
access vehicles, and cargo through both the
airport and aviation system.
• The experienced air traveler has grown
accustomed to delayed flights, overbooking,
missed connections, ground congestion, parking
shortages, and long lines in the terminal
building during peak travel periods.
Introduction
• Comparing the capacity of different configurations
at airfields helps determine which are the most
efficient.
• Inadequate capacity leads to increasing delays at
airports.
• Delay is an important factor in a benefit-cost
analysis and if an economic value can be placed on
delay, the delay reduction savings resulting from an
improvement become benefits which can be used to
justify the cost of that improvement.
Capacity and Delay
• Capacity and delay studies are performed to
evaluate the ability for an airfield in its
current configuration to accommodate current
and future levels of demand.
• Airfield configuration  geometry
Trend in percentage of late arriving and canceled flights—U.S. system-wide
(U.S. Government Accountability Office).
Sources of delay in US
Delay as a function of capacity and demand
Factors That Affect Airfield Capacity
• The configuration, number, spacing, and
orientation of the runway system
• The configuration, number, and location of
taxiways and runway exits
• The arrangement, size, and number of gates
in the apron area
• The runway occupancy time for arriving and
departing aircraft
• The size and mix of aircraft using the facilities
• The most significant factor which affects runway
capacity is the spacing between successive
aircraft.
• Horizontal Separation for arrival (nm)
• Horizontal Separation for departure (seconds)
Formulation of Runway Capacity
through Mathematical Theory
• There are two models
▫ One runways serving either arrivals or departures
▫ One runways serving mixed operations.
The calculation of delay for runways used exclusively by arrivals was
computed from
The model for departures is identical to arrivals except for a
change in subscripts.
For mixed operations, arriving aircraft are normally given priority
and the delay to these aircraft is given by the arrivals .
However, the average delay to departures in this situation can be
found from :
Example Problem 1

• It is necessary to compute the average delay to

arriving aircraft on a runway system which
services only arrivals if the mean service time is
60 s per aircraft with a standard deviation in the
mean service time of 12 s and the average rate of
arrivals is 45 aircraft per hour.
• The mean service rate for arrivals μa is the
reciprocal of the mean service time yielding 1
aircraft per minute of 60 aircraft per hour.
Substitution into
Therefore, the average aircraft delay is about 1.6 min per arrival.
The relationship between delay and capacity can be shown by determining
the runway service rate which corresponds to a delay of 4 min using the above
equation. Assuming that the standard deviation of the mean service time is the
same, we have

or μa is equal to 52 arrivals per hour. If the delay criterion was that arrival
delays could not exceed 4 min then the runway capacity related to delay
would be 52 arrivals per hour.
It should be observed that an increase in capacity from 52 to 60 arrivals per
hour, a 15 % increase in capacity, results in a delay reduction of 2.4 min, a 60
% reduction in delay. This is typical at airports nearing saturation. Small
increases in capacity can result in significant decreases in delay.
Formulation of Runway Capacity
through the Time-Space Concept

Time-space diagram concepts for mixed

operations on runway system.
Air Traffic Separation Rules
Example Problem 2

A runway is to service arrivals and departures. The common approach

path is 7 mi long for all aircraft. During a particular interval of time the
runway is serving only two types of aircraft, a type A with an approach speed
of 120 mi/h and a type B with an approach speed of 90 mi/h.
Each arriving aircraft will be on the runway for 40 s before exiting the
runway.
The air traffic separation rules in effect are given
Time-space diagram for scheduling arrivals
Airport Classification
• Aircraft Approach Category