Analysis of flight-operating costs and delays: The São Paulo terminal maneuvering area

Abstract

This paper considers aircraft in-flight delays and their costs in the São Paulo terminal maneuvering area, Brazil's busiest region for airborne operations. Different flow scenarios were constructed representing these operations based on simulations. Economic evaluation is based on average flight-operating costs and focuses on ground and in-flight operations originating or ending at Congonhas, São Paulo, and Viracopos international airports, the three busiest facilities in the region. Five scenarios are analyzed; two of which, one considering Guarulhos Airport's third runway and another the removal of slow airplanes from Congonhas Airport, result in considerable congestion and delay reductions. Three scenarios involving 10%, 20%, and 30% traffic reallocations from Congonhas to Guarulhos Airport were also analyzed and these suggest small delays in arrival and departure procedures are possible that would reduce airline-operating costs and increase the region's capacity.

Introduction

Brazil's air transport infrastructure is under constant and growing pressure as demands increase on its services (Comando da Aeronáutica, 2005). This growth in traffic is not being matched by an appropriate increase in capacity. Two possible macro-solutions are being considered, an increase in capacity and more effective management of demand, with several variants on each being mooted. In practice, it seems that some combination is inevitable to cope with the long- and short-term problems. Short- and medium-term alternatives are more focused on management of demand. One example is better management of the air traffic flow and another involves changes in the way airport slots are allocated. Such measures are attractive because they can be introduced quickly and have a direct and easily measured impact. They are also low cost. On the other hand, long-term measures tend to focus on increasing capacity and include the construction of new airports, of additional runways at existing facilities, and investment in new technologies. These policies are costly and their benefits only materialize after 5 to 10 years.

This is a standard economic problem affecting all industries that involves assessing the best way to use existing resources while at the same time developing and implementing an optimal investment strategy to enhance that capacity. Kostiuk (2001) has, for example, suggested the methodology summarized in Fig. 1 as one way of doing this in the aviation context.

Analytical and simulation models of capacity and delays have been developed, for example by Santana and Érico (2002), that seek to quantify disparities between capacity and demand. These models enable analysis of capacity/demand and capacity/delay relationships, and the effectiveness of airports and air traffic control (ATC) resource utilization.

In Brazil, the terminal maneuvering area-São Paulo (TMA-SP) has experienced significant congestion (Pereira et al., 2001; Hupalo, 2003 and INFRAERO, 2007) that the aeronautical authorities have found difficult to mitigate. Its difficulties partly stem from a lack of planning, scarcity of resources, poor preservation of the area around the airport that could be used for expansion, bad management of other means of transport, and an inadequate focus on the problem.

At the beginning of 2000, the arrival and departure routes for the TMA-SP, and their control, were changed (MITRE Co., 2001). Aircrafts that had previously been vectored began to follow standardized descent profiles from entering the area until landing. While this reduced traffic controllers’ workload, it did little to increase the effective capacity of the airport and airspace.

São Paulo (SBGR) and Congonhas (SBSP) international airports, the busiest in Brazil (INFRAERO, 2007), are the main facilities in the TMA-SP. They are about 20 km apart and unfortunately have convergent runway position pattern (a 09–27 orientation for Guarulhos and 17–35 for Congonhas) that hampers defining of flight paths with the necessary segregation. Furthermore, they have both been engulfed by their parent cities making any growth in their physical runway capacity almost impossible without huge investments.