A Two-Door Airplane Boarding Approach When Using Apron Buses

Authored by Camelia Delcea, Liviu-Adrian Cotfas, Nora Chirita, Ionut Nica

Date Published: 2018

DOI: 10.3390/su10103619

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: NetLogo

Model Documentation: Other Narrative

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Boarding is one of the major processes of airplane turnaround time, with a direct influence on the airline companies' costs. From a sustainable point of view, a faster completion of the boarding process has impact not only on the airline company's long-term performance, but also on customers' satisfaction and on the airport's possibility of offering more services without additional investments in new infrastructure. Considering the airplane boarding strategies literature, it can be observed that the latest papers are dealing with developing faster boarding strategies, most of them considering boarding using just one-door of the aircraft. Even though boarding on one-door might be feasible for the airports having the needed infrastructure and sufficient jet-bridges, the situation is different in European airports, as the use of apron buses is fairly common. Moreover, some of the airline companies have adapted their boarding pass in order to reflect which door one should board once they get down from the bus. While using these buses, the boarding strategies developed in the literature are hard to find their applicability. Thus, a new method for boarding on two-door airplanes when apron buses are used is proposed and tested against the actual boarding method. A model is created in NetLogo 6.0.4, taking advantages of the agent-based modeling and used for simulations. The results show a boarding time reduction of 8.91\%.

Tags

Agent-based modelling Simulation Sustainability Optimization systems Model classification time Strategies Linear-programming approach Passengers Airplane boarding strategies Netlogo 6.0.4 Efficiency evaluation Two-door boarding Luggage