A model for runway operation decisions with stable queues

Abstract

The landing and takeoff operations for an airport at any given day are described in terms of the capacity envelopes associated to runway system configurations, of the scheduled flights along the day and of predefined delay tolerances for both types of operations. Assuming the inter-arrival times and service times are random variables with known quadratic ratio of momenta, it is possible to identify a parameter, the stable transit time associated to each service and slot, that measures the performance of the airport along the day. Even though constraints on service rates and definition of transit times are nonlinear, the description of runway system capacity using observed operational throughput control points allows to perform an optimization of the service given by the runway system in the general linear programming framework, minimizing costs associated to delays.