Introduction to the Special Issue on Advances in Air Transportation Research

摘要

With the average global growth in traffic demand of ca. 4% in the last 20 years, air transportation has been constantly subjected to new challenges to cope with yet future demands. While airlines have been subjected to cost reductions and operational optimizations and airports are obliged to improve their productivity and capacity, the whole air transportation system has been challenged to change not only in its institutional or structural organizations but also on its working meth-ods and operational procedures with yet more and more appropriate automation levels. Environmental friendly operations have also become an objective, mandating reductions of CO2 emissions and of noise in flight operations. Moreover, economy downturns and high price of kerosene have also challenged the whole Air Transport system to be more productive and less energetically consuming.