Reliable Aircraft Boarding for Fast Turnarounds

Abstract

This paper provides an overview about the research done in the field of aircraft boarding focusing on fast and reliable progress. Since future 4D aircraft trajectories demand the comprehensive consideration of environmental, economic, and operational constraints, a reliable prediction of all aircraft-related processes along the specific trajectories is essential for punctual operations. The necessary change to an air-to-air perspective, with a specific focus on the ground operations, will provide key elements for complying with the challenges over the day of operations. Mutual interdependencies between airports result in system-wide, far-reaching effects (reactionary delays). The ground trajectory of an aircraft primarily consists of the handling processes at the stand (deboarding, catering, fueling, cleaning, boarding, unloading, and loading), which are defined as the aircraft turnaround. To provide a reliable prediction of the turnaround, the critical path of processes has to be managed in a sustainable manner. The turnaround processes are mainly controlled by the ground handling, airport or airline staff, except the aircraft boarding, which is driven by the passengers’ experience and willingness or ability to follow the proposed procedures. In this paper a reliable, validated, stochastic aircraft boarding model is introduced, as well as results from three different research activities: application of Side-Slip Seat, interference potential as metric to evaluate the boarding progress, and capabilities of a future connected cabin.