An approach to forecast air traffic movements at capacity-constrained airports

Abstract

Due to steadily growing air traffic, airports need a means to evaluate the capability of their infrastructure to handle future air traffic movements. Sound forecasts are needed for fundraising, within lawsuits, and in order to avoid misplanning. The quality of current forecasts is often queried. Hence, this work introduces parts of a tool chain that derives future air traffic movements out of transport scenarios and compares them to the capacity of an airport. Five consecutive models within the chain yield future air traffic movements for one airport considering passenger demand, a forecast of aircraft movements, airline preferences and airport capacity.