Optimum airport capacity utilization under congestion management: A case study of New York LaGuardia airport

In the United States, most airports do not place any limitations on airline schedules. At a few major airports, the current scheduling restrictions (mostly administrative measures) have not been sufficiently strict to avoid consistent delays and have raised debates about both the efficiency and the fairness of the allocations. With a forecast of 1.1 billion yearly air travelers within the US by 2015, airport expansion and technology enhancement alone are not enough to cope with the competition-driven scheduling practices of the airline industry. The policy legacy needs to change to be consistent with airport capacities. Flights on US airlines arrived late more often in the first four months of 2007 than in any other year since the government began tracking delays, and flight cancellations increased 91% over 2006. With a forecast of 1.1 billion yearly air travelers within the US by 2015, airport expansion and technology enhancement alone are not enough to cope with the competition-driven scheduling practices of the airline industry. Our research studies how flight schedules might change if airlines were required to restrict their schedules to runway capacity. To obtain these schedules, we model a profit-seeking, single benevolent airline whose goal is to maintain current competitive prices and service as many current passengers as possible, while remaining profitable. Our case study demonstrates that at Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) runway rates, the market can find profitable flight schedules that reduce substantially the average flight delay to less than 6 minutes while simultaneously satisfying virtually all of the current demand with average prices remaining unchanged. This is accomplished through significant upgauging to high-demand markets.