Aircraft Flow Management under Congestion

Airport congestion is one of the main causes of costly aircraft delays. Sometimes costs may be reduced by imposing on some aircraft a delay at take off time in order to later avoid a more expensive airborne delay. The objective of the Flow Management Problem (F.M.P.) is to find an optimal delay strategy so that the total expected delay cost is minimized. In this paper an idealized and greatly simplified version of F.M.P. is investigated. In particular the airways network considered is star-shaped and congestion is allowed only in the central (arrival) airport. For this particular version a model is presented and a polynomial solution algorithm is derived. Landing priorities among aircraft can also influence the total expected delay cost: the optimal priority rule for our version of the F.M.P. is derived. Another algorithm is presented for the case where the number of aircraft not to be delayed on the ground is given a priori. Possible extensions of the proposed model to more realistic situations are mentioned.