Future Passenger Air Traffic Modelling: A theoretical Concept to integrate Quality of Travel, Cost of Travel and Capacity Constraints

Abstract

In order to model possible future evolutions of the global air transportation system (ATS), not only the assumptions on external socio-economic conditions are relevant to estimate the future realized air passenger demand on city pair level. The internal scenario concerning the air transportation system (ATS), i.e. how the ATS is changing over time with the introduction of new technologies or new operational concepts has a non-neglectable feedback on realized demand. Also, the effect of infrastructural changes concerning airport and airspace capacities have to be considered. That means, the forecast of realized demand and thus realized air traffic depends equally on the supply offered by the air transportation system. There are three essential kinds of feedback on realized air passenger demand and air traffic, the supply provided by the ATS may have. We present a theoretical concept to integrate these three kinds of feedback (1) quality of travel, (2) cost of travel, and (3) constraints of the supply side of the air transportation system on modelling global future scheduled air traffic. The 4-layers approach of modelling future evolutions of the ATS is a basic prerequisite to model these feedbacks, especially the consistent derivation of an aircraft movements network with information on aircraft generations.