Performance of the Air Transportation System for the Atlanta - Chicago - O'Hare Route

The goal of the air transportation system is to provide reliable, affordable, rapid transportation of people and goods. This service is achieved by the interaction between autonomous, distributed agents (e.g. airports, air traffic control and airlines) that operate under a high degree of uncertainty (e.g. weather, economy). As a consequence, the overall speed of and reliability of this mode of transportation is determined by the collective interaction between these agents and the impact of uncertainty in the system. This paper describes a methodology and the results of an analysis of the degree of uncertainty in trip time reliability on a single congested-hub to congested-hub route (Atlanta - Chicago O'Hare). The analysis identified that the actual gate-to-gate trip time varies by up to 30% of the average trip time. The analysis also identified systemic schedule padding of 16 minutes on this route, and statistically significant differences between the trip time in the summer, winter and fall/spring, between time-of-day, and between narrow-body and regional jets. The implications of these results on airlines strategies and passenger experience are discussed