4.3. Airport Schedule Optimization Model (ASOM)

349 Pages·2012·4.65 MB·English

A METHODOLOGYFOREVALUATINGECONOMICAND POLICYIMPACTSONAIRLINEAND
PASSENGERBEHAVIOR
by
John Ferguson
A Dissertation
Submitted to the
Graduate Faculty
of
George Mason University
in Partial Fulfillment of
The Requirements for the Degree
of
Doctor of Philosophy
Systems Engineering and Operations Research
Dr..Karla Hoffman, Dissertation Director
Dr. LanceSherry, Committee Member
Dr. George Donohue, Committee Member
Dr. Andrew Loerch, Committee Member
Dr. Mark Houck, Committee Member
Dr. Ariela Sofer, Department Chair
Dr. Lloyd J.Griffiths, Dean, Volgenau School
of Engineering
Date: _ Spring Semester 2012
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
A Methodology for Evaluating Economic and Policy Impacts on Airline and Passenger
Behavior

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University

By

John Ferguson
Master of Science
Memphis State University, 1990
Bachelor of Science
Virginia Military Institute, 1988

Director: Dr. Karla Hoffman, Professor
Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research

Spring Semester 2012
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
Copyright: 2012 John Ferguson
All Rights Reserved

ii
DEDICATION

I dedicate this dissertation to my wife Wilda and daughters, Julia and Devin.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to my advisor, Prof. Karla Hoffman, for her guidance without which I would
never have made it to the end of my PhD studies. Her expertise in operations research
and insight into airline scheduling molded this dissertation in unexpected ways.
Prof. Lance Sherry provided helpful insights for this research. His expert domain
knowledge in air transportation helped me shape the results of my research. His
availability and receptiveness to discussions at any time removed many hurdles in
achieving my goal.
Prof. George Donohue contributed through his experience as a policy maker at the
Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and identified multiple beneficiaries of this research.
His comments helped me identify and capture the broader implications of my work.
Prof. Mark Houck gave an outsider’s viewpoint on this research. His knowledge of
regression analysis assisted in clarifying the overall methodology of this research.
Discussion with him helped me look at the problem from a civil engineer’s perspective.
Prof. Andrew Loerch gave an outsider’s viewpoint on this research. His knowledge of
regression analysis assisted in clarifying the overall methodology of this research. His
concerns assisted in writing a better description of the problem.
Several others have contributed to this research, Vivek Kumar, Jianfeng Wang,
Guillermo Calderon; foremost among them is Abdul Qadar Kara. Starting our research
journey together at the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research (CATSR) lab, he
has been a true friend to me, giving me a helping hand whenever required. I have
learned most of my CPLEX and Java tricks from him and I thank him for that.
I would like to thank my family Wilda, Julia and Devin Ferguson who supported me at
every stage of my pursuit of this degree and sacrificed their time with me so I could
finish my research.
I would like to thank my parents Raymond and Johnnie Ferguson who supported me at
every stage of my life and encouraged me to go further and reach higher goals in life.
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My gratitude goes out to my mentors Dr. B N Narahari Achar, Dr. D Wayne Jones, Dr.
Michael Guthrie, Col (Ret.) Brion Chabot, LTC (Ret.) Van Cunningham, Col (Ret.) Peter
Nelson and LTC (Ret.) Mark Brantley who encouraged me to pursue a Ph.D.
This research was funded by The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA).

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xiii
List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xix
List of Equations ............................................................................................................. xxvii
List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... xxix
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. i
1. Chapter 1 – Introduction ............................................................................................ 1
1.1. BACKGROUND OF CONGESTION PROBLEM ......................................................... 1
1.2. Problem Statement .............................................................................................. 7
1.3. Objective of this Research .................................................................................... 9
1.4. Research Approach ............................................................................................ 11
1.5. Research Contributions ...................................................................................... 15
1.6. Dissertation Outline ........................................................................................... 16
2. Chapter 2 – Literature Review .................................................................................. 17
2.1. The Economics that motivate airlines ................................................................ 17
2.1.1. Airline Revenue and Costs .......................................................................... 18
vi
2.2. Airline Fleet Planning ......................................................................................... 21
2.3. Airport Capacity Limits ....................................................................................... 23
2.4. Airline Fleet Assignment and Scheduling Models .............................................. 24
2.4.1. Airline schedule planning ............................................................................ 25
2.4.2. Modeling Airline Scheduling ....................................................................... 27
2.5. Passenger Demand versus Airfare Models ........................................................ 29
2.5.1. Gravity Models ............................................................................................ 30
2.5.2. S-Curve Models ........................................................................................... 44
2.6. Macroeconomic Models used for airline scheduling ......................................... 47
2.6.1. Airline Fleet Assignment Models (Hane et al. 1995) (C. Barnhart et al.
2002)(Lohatepanont & C. Barnhart 2004)(Belobaba et al. 2009) ...................... 47
2.6.2. Simulating Airline Operational Responses to Environmental and Capacity
Constraints (Evans, Antony 2010)(Evans & Schäfer 2011) .................................. 53
2.6.3. Demand Management at congested airports: How far are we from utopia?
(L. T. Le 2006)(L. Le et al. 2008) ............................................................................ 59
2.7. This dissertation’s relationship to the literature ............................................... 61
2.8. Contributions ...................................................................................................... 62
3. Chapter 3 – Domestic Passenger Demand Behavior Analysis in response to
Economic fluctuations in Fuel Prices and National Unemployment Rates ...................... 64
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3.1. Modeling Passenger Demand versus Airfare ..................................................... 65
3.1.1. Different approaches to modeling passenger demand versus airfare
behavior .................................................................................................................... 65
3.1.2. Study Questions .......................................................................................... 68
3.2. Preprocessing Revenue versus Demand curves................................................. 73
3.2.1. Calculating proportional fares for passenger trip segments ...................... 74
3.2.2. Airline profit model ..................................................................................... 78
3.2.3. Passenger Demand versus Airfare .............................................................. 81
3.2.4. Fitting the model to the data ...................................................................... 82
3.3. Capturing economic fluctuations in airline macroeconomic models ................ 87
3.4. Analysis of fluctuations in fuel prices and national unemployment rates effects
on Passenger behavior .................................................................................................. 88
3.4.1. Scope of Analysis ......................................................................................... 88
3.4.2. Analytical Method ....................................................................................... 90
3.4.3. Results of analysis ....................................................................................... 93
3.4.4. Further examination of alternative Models ............................................... 97
3.4.5. Conclusions and Observations .................................................................... 98
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4. Chapter 4 – Modeling Domestic Airline Scheduling of non-stop direct markets with
the Airport Schedule Optimization Model...................................................................... 101
4.1. Airport Schedule Optimization Model (ASOM) Overview ............................... 103
4.2. Preprocessing data for the ASOM .................................................................... 107
4.2.1. Historic service for daily markets.............................................................. 107
4.2.2. Aircraft seat classes and average market flight costs ............................... 108
4.3. Airport Schedule Optimization Model (ASOM) Equilibrium Model ................. 114
4.3.1. ASOM Scope and Assumptions ................................................................. 117
4.3.2. ASOM Limitations ..................................................................................... 120
4.3.3. ASOM Flight and Ground Arcs .................................................................. 122
4.3.4. Interaction of Demand and Supply through Price .................................... 123
4.3.5. ASOM Airport Master-Problem ................................................................ 130
4.3.6. ASOM Market Sub-Problems .................................................................... 132
4.3.7. ASOM Output files .................................................................................... 135
4.4. Airport Schedule Optimization Model (ASOM) Improvements and Contributions
137
4.5. Airport Schedule Optimization Model (ASOM) Validation .............................. 139
4.6. Airport Schedule Optimization Model (ASOM) Conclusions ........................... 147
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