Analysis of Natural Laminar Flow Aircraft based on Airline Network Design and Fleet Assignment

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the evaluation of a future aircraft concept equipped with natural laminar fow technology (NLF) based on airline network design and fleet assignment. NLF leads to higher fuel efficiency compared to existing state-of-the-art short-to-medium haul aircraft. The evaluation approach based on network modeling allows to capture net- work effects such as fleet utilization. Network effects are not captured by a cost benefit analysis applied to standard flight missions. In this study networks are designed for different air transportation scenarios, whereas the flight schedule of an existing European low-cost carrier serves as candidate flight list. Fleet assignment is solved simultaneously by considering a baseline aircraft and the future aircraft concept as candidate fleets. The resulting networks are evaluated with respect to global network protability, fuel consumption and fleet composition. Results reveal a signicant impact of the natural laminar flow performance on fleet deployment and network contribution of the future concept. Further, results indicate turn-around time to be an important driver for fleet deployment caused by network effects.