At present runway congestion in the airline industry has reached a dangerously high level. The effects of this are very costly to all parties involved; US$5bn per year in Europe in 1989 alone. The problem demands urgent attention to accommodate the expected average growth in air transport of 6% per annum. up to the year 2000. It is becoming more and more obvious, however, that the construction of new runways is not a feasible option due to both political, environmental and physical space limitations within Europe. Alternative solutions are therefore required. In 1991 the European Regional Airlines Association, (ERA), produced a document entitled, 'The Vital Link', which outlined a number of ways in which regional aircraft could use their performance differences from the larger jet aircraft to help generate extra runway capacity from existing runways. Whilst the author was a member of the ERA operations committee he developed some of these ideas further. It is the objective of this thesis to examine the ideas developed by the author from both a theoretical and practical point of view to determine the feasibility of implementing them at congested European airports. Theoretical simulation modelling of Manchester, Zurich and Gatwick airports was undertaken using the FAA SIMMOD airport and airspace simulation model. This produced delay time savings and changes to peak hour movement rates which were used in a cost benefit analysis model to see whether or not the procedure would make a cost saving. The practical side of the thesis focused on an industry questionnaire to regional airlines, major airlines and airports to obtain their views on the new procedures and case studies of the procedures at Manchester and Gatwick airports. Results of the work show that whilst the procedures can effectively reduce operating delays they have a lessor impact on peak hour movement rates. Optimum use of the procedures is unique to individual airports and depends on the runway operation mode, TMA airspace configuration and the type and variability of the traffic mix. Actual application of the procedures will be dependant on political and environmental restrictions and likely future changes in regional airlines aircraft fleets.

The objective of this study is to estimate the airport capacity in the National Airspace System (NAS). Previous studies have focused on the airport capacity of large commercial airports. This research study estimates the runway capacity for more than two thousand airports in the NAS in order to understand future tradeoffs between air transportation demand and supply. The study presented in this report includes capacity estimates for general aviation and commercial airports. To estimate airport runway capacity, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airfield Capacity Model (ACM) is used to assess the capacity at all candidate airports in a target airport set. This set includes all airports with potential Very Light Jet (VLJ) operations. The result of the study provides a broad view about the airport capacity in the future air transportation system, and could help decision makers with a modeling framework to identify congestion patterns in the system. Moreover, airport capacity is an important limiting factor in the growth of air transportation demand. The main motivation in our analyis is to include airport capacity constraints in forecasts of air transportation demand. The framework described in this report has been integrated into the Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM). TSAM is a comprehensive intercity and multimode transportation planning tool to predict future air transportation demand. / Master of Science

This thesis evaluates the potential recovery of the runway throughput under Wake Turbulence Re-categorization (RECAT) Phase II and Time-based Separation (TBS) with a Runway Occupancy Time (ROT) constraint comparing with RECAT Phase I. This research uses aircraft performance parameters (runway occupancy time, approach speed, etc.) from the Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X) data set. The analysis uses a modified version of the Quick Response Runway Capacity Model (RUNSIM). The main contributions of the study are: 1) identifying the technical buffer between in-trail arrivals and regenerate them in RUNSIM; 2) estimate the percentage of the arrival pairs that have wake mitigation separation times in excess of ROT; 3) developed an additional in-trail arrival separation rule based on ROT; 4) measure the risk of potential go-arounds with and without the additional 95 ROT separation rules. 5) generate a sample equivalent time-based RECAT II. The study results show that the distributions of technical buffers have significant differences for different in-trail groups and strong connectivity to airport elevations. This is critical to estimate runway capacities and safety issues especially when advanced wake mitigation separation rules are applied. Also, with decreasing of wake separations, ROT will become a limiting factor in runway throughput in the future. This study shows that by considering a 95 percentile ROT constrain, one single runway can still obtain 4 or 5 more arrivals per hour under RECAT II but keep the same level of potential go-arounds compared with current operation rules (RECAT I). TBS rules seem to benefit more under strong wind conditions compared to RECAT I, and RECAT II. TBS rules need to be tailored to every airport. / Master of Science / This thesis evaluates the potential recovery of the runway throughputs by re-defining the minimum distance or time separations between successive arrivals. The minimum separation criteria between in-trail arrivals is defined by Federal Aviation Administration to avoid the wake vortex influence produced by the leading aircraft. The main contribution of this thesis lies in estimation of throughput capacity with the reduced minimum separation between arrivals. The study results show that the distributions of buffers added to the minimum separations have significant differences for different in-trail groups and strong connectivity to airport elevations. This is critical to estimate runway capacities and safety issues especially when advanced wake mitigation separation rules are applied. Also, with decreasing of wake separations, runway occupancy time will become a limiting factor in runway throughput in the future. This study shows that by considering a 95 percentile ROT constrain, one single runway can still obtain 4 or 5 more arrivals per hour under reduced minimum separation but keep the same level of potential go-arounds compared with current operation rules.

Increased efficiency at airports is necessary to reduce delays and fuel consumption. Many of the busiest airports in the nation have at least one pair of closely spaced parallel runways (CSPRs), defined by a separation of less than 2500 ft, with one runway dedicated to arrivals and the other to departures. CSPRs experience a large decrease in capacity under instrument conditions because they can no longer operate independently. In order to mitigate this decrease in capacity and to increase efficiency, proposed herein is a departure regulator for runways so configured, along with a plan of study to investigate the effects of this regulator. The proposed departure regulator makes use of data from precision tracking systems such as ADS-B to issue automated or semi-automated departure clearances. Assuming sequential departure separations are sufficient for clearance, the regulator will automatically issue, or advise the controller to issue, the departure clearance as soon as the arrival on the adjacent runway has descended below its decision height. By issuing the departure clearance earlier, the departure regulator reduces the gap between a pair of arrivals that is required to clear a departure. By decreasing the gap, the regulator increases the number of opportunities where a departure clearance can be issued, given a particular arrival stream. A simulation models the effects of the regulator and quantifies the resulting increases in capacity. The simulation results indicate that all forms of the regulator would provide significant gains of between 14% and 23% in capacity over the current operating paradigm. The results also indicate that the capacity gains are greatest at high arrival rates. Therefore, implementation of the departure regulator could significantly decrease the congestion at many major airports during inclement weather.