Major airports throughout the world are becoming increasingly constrained by airside capacity. Providing an additional runway movement per hour at an airport is of enormous benefit to airlines, the airport operator and the local economy. To ensure that the greatest output is obtained from existing facilities, it is imperative that high performance be realised from all the resources and factors that can affect airside capacity. However, complex interactions exist between these factors, and the performance of the entire airside system can only be optimised if these interactions are well understood.

Our approach

Icon has developed a three-stage approach to helping airports improve airside performance.

Stage 1 is to set up a comprehensive set of performance indicators to cover all aspects of airside operations. This includes the performance of ATC in sequencing and separating flights, the performance of airlines in complying with airport procedures and requests, the performance of airport management in the allocation of airport facilities to aircraft, and the output of this performance in terms of throughput and delay.

Stage 2 is to identify all the factors that influence airside performance and the interactions between them.

Stage 3 is to quantify the impact that the controllable factors have on the performance indicators that they affect.

The three stages have been captured in an analytical tool that can be tailored to individual airports. The tool permits:

• identification of the factors and interactions that drive each performance indicator;
  
• quantification of the impact on performance of variability in the system, and hence the improvement possible from reducing variability;
  
• quantification of the impact on the output measures of improving the performance of the actors involved in airport airside operations;
  
• sensitivity analysis on the influencing factors to identify where improvement will have the greatest impact;
  
• goal-seeking to determine the extent to which performance in a particular area must be improved to achieve a desired output.

We are able to offer airports a consultancy service in airside performance improvement, which will be tailored to the requirements of a particular airport.

Icon Consulting, 2Fl, Berkeley Square House, Berkeley Square, London W1J 6BD
tel: +44 (0) 207 494 9994 | email: enquiries@icon-consulting.com