Impact of Tailwind on Airport Capacity and Delay at Zurich Airport

摘要

Wind has a significant impact on the safety of airport operations. Crosswind affects flight stability, while head/tailwind affects the required runway length for landings and take-offs. Those two reasons make wind speed and direction an important factor in the runway configuration selection process. Strong crosswind calls for a runway orientation change, while the tailwind is usually associated with the switch of the runway direction in use. This paper analyses a specific case - the impact of tailwind on the runway configuration selection and, consequently, on airport capacity and delays generated due to demand-capacity imbalance. The problem of traffic delays caused by activation of unfavourable runway configurations due to tailwind is analysed using the case of Zurich Airport and traffic data collected over a five-month period in the summer of 2018. The main objective of the analysis was to identify possible areas of improvement in Air Traffic Control decision-making related to runway configuration activation due to tailwind.