DEVELOPMENTS IN AIRPORT CAPACITY ANALYSIS

Abstract Runway capacity is defined as the maximum number of aircraft operations that can be handled during a specific period of time, under given operating conditions. The most important determinants of capacity are the aircraft mix, the lenght of the common approach path, and the operating strategy. Aircraft are postulated to deviate from intended paths while approaching a runway to land. These deviations are assumed to be normally distributed random variables with zero means. In order to maintain the probability of violations of aircraft separation rules, controllers are assumed to introduce buffers between aircraft in order to absorb the randomness in their separations. A capacity model is constructed with these postulates. The model yields runway capacity for various operating strategies and permits the choice of the optimal strategy for a given and intended arrival-departure mix. The application of the model is demonstrated with data from New York's La Guardia Airport.