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Improving slot allocation at Level 3 airports

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  • Ribeiro, Nuno Antunes
  • Jacquillat, Alexandre
  • Antunes, António Pais
  • Odoni, Amedeo

Abstract

Most of the busiest airports outside the United States, including the major connecting hubs, are classified as Level 3. At these airports, airlines need to be assigned slots by a schedule coordinator to schedule flights. Slot allocation is driven by a set of rules and priorities specified in the Worldwide Slot Guidelines (WSG) published by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The process and rules for slot allocation at Level 3 airports carry enormous economic and regulatory implications for the global air transport sector. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing quest for improvements to the process that can be realistically implemented in practice. For that purpose, we have developed an optimization model, fully compliant with the WSG, for allocating airport slots to airlines and applied it at a few airports of varying sizes in Portugal, in order to compare the slot allocations performed by the coordinators with the best possible slot allocations under a variety of objectives and constraints, as well as to assess the impacts of potential changes to the WSG. The results obtained show that some even limited changes to the WSG can, on their own, bring considerable benefits in the short term to the slot allocation process. We have also identified and summarized a number of other potential changes to the WSG, with potential to make the slot allocation process even more efficient, fair, transparent and inclusive.

Suggested Citation

  • Ribeiro, Nuno Antunes & Jacquillat, Alexandre & Antunes, António Pais & Odoni, Amedeo, 2019. "Improving slot allocation at Level 3 airports," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 32-54.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:127:y:2019:i:c:p:32-54
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2019.06.014
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Fukui, Hideki, 2014. "Effect of slot trading on route-level competition: Evidence from experience in the UK," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 124-141.
    2. Ribeiro, Nuno Antunes & Jacquillat, Alexandre & Antunes, António Pais & Odoni, Amedeo R. & Pita, João P., 2018. "An optimization approach for airport slot allocation under IATA guidelines," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 132-156.
    3. Konstantinos G. Zografos & Michael A. Madas & Konstantinos N. Androutsopoulos, 2017. "Increasing airport capacity utilisation through optimum slot scheduling: review of current developments and identification of future needs," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 3-24, February.
    4. Pellegrini, Paola & Bolić, Tatjana & Castelli, Lorenzo & Pesenti, Raffaele, 2017. "SOSTA: An effective model for the Simultaneous Optimisation of airport SloT Allocation," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 34-53.
    5. Jacquillat, Alexandre & Odoni, Amedeo R., 2015. "Endogenous control of service rates in stochastic and dynamic queuing models of airport congestion," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 133-151.
    6. Gillen, David & Jacquillat, Alexandre & Odoni, Amedeo R., 2016. "Airport demand management: The operations research and economics perspectives and potential synergies," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 495-513.
    7. Alexandre Jacquillat & Amedeo R. Odoni, 2015. "An Integrated Scheduling and Operations Approach to Airport Congestion Mitigation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1390-1410, December.
    8. Nikolas Pyrgiotis & Amedeo Odoni, 2016. "On the Impact of Scheduling Limits: A Case Study at Newark Liberty International Airport," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 150-165, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Katsigiannis, Fotios A. & Zografos, Konstantinos G., 2021. "Optimising airport slot allocation considering flight-scheduling flexibility and total airport capacity constraints," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 50-87.
    2. Lee, Heeyeon & Jung, Jihyeok & Lee, Deok-Joo, 2024. "An auction-based airport slot reallocation scheme considering the grandfather rights of airlines," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    3. Katsigiannis, Fotios A. & Zografos, Konstantinos G., 2023. "Incorporating slot valuation in making airport slot scheduling decisions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(1), pages 436-454.
    4. Keskin, Merve & Zografos, Konstantinos G., 2023. "Optimal network-wide adjustments of initial airport slot allocations with connectivity and fairness objectives," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    5. Jorge, Diana & Antunes Ribeiro, Nuno & Pais Antunes, António, 2021. "Towards a decision-support tool for airport slot allocation: Application to Guarulhos (Sao Paulo, Brazil)," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    6. Yang, Huijuan & Buire, Clara & Delahaye, Daniel & Le, Meilong, 2024. "A heuristic-based multi-objective flight schedule generation framework for airline connectivity optimisation in bank structure: An empirical study on Air China in Chengdu," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    7. Pouget, Lilian & Ribeiro, Nuno Antunes & Odoni, Amedeo R. & Antunes, António Pais, 2023. "How do airlines react to slot displacements? Evidence from a major airport," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

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