Impact of stochastic delays, turnaround time and connection time on missed connections at low cost airports

• Main Authors: Ali, Hasnain, Guleria, Yash, Alam, Sameer, Duong, Vu N., Schultz, Michael
• Other Authors: Thirteenth USA/Europe Air Traffic Management Research and Development Seminar (ATM2019)
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Aeronautical engineering; Air Traffic Management; Airports
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/146690
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Low cost carriers usually operate from budget terminals which are designed for quick aircraft turnaround, faster passenger connections with minimal inter-gate passenger transfer times. Such operations are highly sensitive to factors such as aircraft delays, turnaround time and flight connection time and may lead to missed connections for transfer passengers. In this paper we propose a framework to analyze the effect of turnaround times, minimum connection times and stochastic delays on missed connections of self-connecting passengers. We use Singapore Changi Airport budget terminal as a case study to demonstrate the impact of operational uncertainties on these passenger connections, considering an optimal gate assignment and using heuristic search for both scheduled arrivals and departures. Results show that the chances of missed connections can be significantly reduced by operationally maintaining higher turnaround time and minimum connection time and by bringing down delays at the airport. Specifically by maintaining the flight turnaround time at 50 min, minimum connection time at 60 min and by containing arrival delays within 70% of the current delay spread, transfer passenger missed connections can be prevented for almost all the flights. The gate assignment framework adopted in this study may also help to identify the gates which are more prone to missed connections given operational uncertainties and different flight scenarios.