Odoni, Amedeo R.
Prastacos, Gregory P.
Doukidis, Georgios
Lioukas, Spyros
Saaty, Thomas
Poulymenakou, Angeliki
Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Management Science and Technology
Recent air transport forecasts speak for an increase in international air passenger traffic in Europe by an average of 3,6% per year between 2002 and 2020. The rapid traffic growth has resulted in severe congestion and delay problems, which, in turn, have self-constrained air transport growth and become a major transport policy issue on both sides of the Atlantic. The increasing imbalance between capacity and traffic has resulted in congestion and delay figures that have drawn the attention of aviation policy makers and already triggered policy discussions that bring into the forefront the challenging dilemma: Demand Management or Capacity Enhancement? Actually, research programs and aviation policy makers to date have concentrated primarily on infrastructure projects, technologies and operating procedures that can enhance or expand system capacity, while maintaining the requisite exceptionally high level of safety. Most potential remedies to the congestion problem seeking to balance supply with the demand for airport services can be classified under three major streams of supply-side approaches: i) airport improvements / expansions and new airport developments, ii) airspace and airport procedural / operational improvements, and iii) aircraft improvements. Supply-side efforts, however, are focused on confronting a multifaceted and rather complicated problem by devoting efforts and resources only to one side of the problem. Unfortunately, the experience of the last decade suggests strongly that, by concentrating on increasing capacity, we may be fighting a losing - and extremely expensive - battle. According to traffic growth forecasts, the overwhelming increases in demand and delay phenomena in conjunction with severe political, physical, and institutional constraints in providing sufficient capacity to satisfy all anticipated future demand render such a solution rather impossible. Since well-publicized delay problems encountered by metropolitan European and U.S. airports entered the political arena, there is an unprecedented pressure experienced by policy makers and aviation authorities upon investigating demand management strategies to cope with the so called “aviation capacity gridlock”. Demand management strategies involve two ways of handling demand: i) by limiting in some way the demand for access to busy airports or congested airspace and/or ii) by modifying the spatial and temporal distribution of demand to bring it closer to available capacity. The first approach can be achieved through administrative means aiming to ease congestion by diverting some traffic on the basis of certain criteria where it can be handled more promptly or efficiently. The second alternative dictates the design of a pricing system or other market-based mechanism (e.g., slot auctions, trading) so that market forces allocate capacity among competing users by considering the real market valuation of access to scarce / congested airport facilities. Because of the severity of the congestion problem, demand management solutions (presented in detail in Chapter 5 of the dissertation) have lately received a great deal of consideration from policy makers, airport users and operators. Currently, access to airports is typically managed - if any - through a landing fee that is proportional to the maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of the aircraft irrespective of the actual infrastructure utilization and traffic / congestion levels. Typically, charges are designed and set in order for the airport authority to break even, but, on the other hand, these charges are not at a level capable of automatically clearing the market. As a result, a set of administrative mechanisms have been put into place in order to handle traffic more efficiently, or at least to establish a clear and concrete slot allocation mechanism. The industry has developed alternative means and procedures (dating back to a system created by IATA in 1947 and gradually updated over the years) to handle the conflicts of interest involved in the allocation of scarce airport capacity. Traditionally, capacity at most congested airports of the world is expressed in slots and allocated within the framework of voluntary guidelines developed and evolved over the years under the auspices of IATA.
Βελτιώσεις αεροδρομίου
Λειτουργίες αεροδρομίου
Υποδομή αεροδρομίου
Τιμολόγηση συστήματος αεροπορικών μεταφορών
Airport demand management
Airport improvements
Airport operations
Airport infrastructure
Air transport system pricing