Improving airside operations

Airport: Luxembourg Airport, Luxembourg (EU).

Client: Lux-Airport, Aerodrome Operator.

This project continues the theme of efficiency management projects towards reduction of delays and simultaneously improving a process.

Air freight often needs to make it to multiple locations at the airport on the airside. In doing so they could be crossing one or more apron, and security zones.

This is a concern because the freight is often time sensitive, or temperature sensitive, or the kind that is of much volume therefore requires to be transported either over several trips or several vehicles. Where its path intersects that of air-traffic, it was either stopping for few seconds to well past a minute. Movement of goods is therefore much slower and only adds to the apron traffic during peak periods.

Waiting out till past the peak periods to transport freight is not an option. The freight too has places to get to and within business hours of the day so that it can be received and signed off for. Air freight often needs to make it to multiple locations at the airport on the airside. In doing so they could be crossing one or more apron, and security zones.

Airside freight movement thus needed to be incorporated into the airside operations while ensuring that it does not impeding on air-traffic and vice-versa. 

Recognizing the variability throughout the freight movement process, such as that of nature or size of these freights, and the duration at security zones, proposing a hard-wired solution of how many freight vehicles should get through and at what time would result in unrealistic answers and defeat the purpose of the exercise.

Through deep analysis, pattern detection, working out arrival rates on the apron, and incorporating the aerodrome operations related variables into the analysis, the proposed solution leaned on tailor-made optimization model to therefore determine the times and durations available for freight movement, i.e., movement windows, a tool for decision-making.

The proposed solution thus empowers the daily operations personnel with flexibility and encourages the decision of fright movement management at ground level.

Image source: Personal project archives.