Handling disruptions in Total Airport Management using what-if enabled systems

Abstract

Airports are a critical part of the aviation network and are often operating at their capacity limits. This leads to an increased vulnerability against severe weather conditions. In this paper, a concept of operations based on the Total Airport Management (TAM) approach is presented that can bring significant benefit in such disruptive conditions. The key factor is that in addition to the collaborative planning process, which is at the heart of TAM, what-if enabled systems are introduced that allow to forecast the effect of anticipated meteorological conditions as well as planned actions by individual stakeholders on the overall operations. This is a new element, as previously what-if enabled systems were only available at the individual stakeholder level. The underlying concept along with newly developed system prototypes has been validated in a highly realistic simulation study employing operational experts from Oslo Gardermoen Airport. The benefit of applying this approach in a forecasted winter weather scenario on the overall operations could be demonstrated clearly, mainly showing improved punctuality and a reduced recovery time. At the same time, human factors indicators such as workload, team situation awareness and acceptance ratings were very favorable.