Measures for Airlines to Reduce Airport Congestion Fees: Scheme Design and Performance Assessment

Congestion at busy airports has become one of the major bottlenecks to air transportation development around the world. Airport congestion pricing is one of the most popular market-based mechanisms to relieve airport congestion. This study develops a steady-state congestion model, which considers the market power of airlines and the costs of externalities (i.e., airlines, passengers, and the environment), to estimate congestion fees for different times and queue lengths. To reduce airport congestion fees, we propose and discuss two different options for airlines: schedule adjustment and flight merging in detail from the views of economic, operational, and environmental benefits, and provide a comparative performance analysis of two different measures using an empirical example of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (CAN). Our analysis shows that: (1) during the peak period, the congestion fees for one specific flight (operated by B738) may exceed 10,000 RMB, even reach 25,000 RMB; (2) both the methods can relieve congestion and effectively reduce congestion fees; (3) in the CAN case, flight merging by a bigger aircraft B744 is more effective in congestion relief, total fees reduction, and emission mitigation; and (4) schedule adjustment has a better performance of reducing fees per adjusted flight and is more simple and straightforward. We also provide several recommendations to relieve congestion and cut congestion fees.