Potential Benefits of Fix-Based Ground Delay Programs to Address Weather Constraints

The objective of this analysis is to evaluate the performance of increasingly precise airport ground delay program (GDP) procedures under a range of weather forecasting capabilities. The GDP procedures include both current (airport-based) programs and future (airport arrival fix-based) programs. The weather forecasting capabilities assume various temporal and spatial forecast errors relative to a baseline forecast. A general modeling framework is developed for studying weather impacts on GDPs and is applied as a single-day case study of Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD). The framework includes a weather severity index used to aggregate weather impact. The analysis demonstrates the payoff for using more precise GDP flow control mechanisms than are used today to exploit improved weather forecasting capabilities expected in the future.