Identification of Capacity Constrained Airports: A Review of Indicators and a Case Study of Major European Airports

摘要

The air transport industry has seen significant growth rates over the last decades. Due tornlocal constraints, many airports have not been able to expand their infrastructure at thernsame speed. Hence more and more airports are facing their capacity limits and arernsearching for solutions to overcome this problem. Which airports are already operatingrnclose to or at their capacity limit? This is the research question that this paper is focusingrnon. The purpose of this paper is to identify existing bottlenecks in the air transport system,rnwhich are due to a lack of airport capacity. This is very valuable information because itrnhas a direct impact on the future development of the air transport system. OAG (OfficialrnAirline Guide) data is used to build up traffic structures. A set of indices, which describesrnthe characteristics of each airport and its traffic structure will be defined. Based on thernBasic Load Index and the Peak Load Index one can analyse the capacity situation of arnspecific airport. This allows to identify airports which operate already close to or at theirrnmaximum capacity. Based on this study further analysis which take into account thernprojected traffic growth rates, could reveal possible future bottlenecks of the global airrntransport system.