A discrete event simulation model for inbound baggage handling

Abstract Inbound baggage handling represents a crucial process among airport terminal's activities as it affects directly airport performance and passengers' service quality perception. It is important to make the inbound process as efficient as possible and to explore solutions to enhance the performance of the system, thus reducing passengers' waiting time at baggage carousels. The aim of this paper is to present a detailed discrete event model of inbound baggage handling at a large regional Italian airport. The simulation model allows to fully understand the whole process and to identify bottlenecks and critical operations. The model is validated by comparing the simulation results with real data

A Simulation Study on Baggage Screening at San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport

Efficient passenger flow is a crucial objective at both small and larger airports. One central part of this is the handling of checked luggage which is influenced by necessary security screening. Within this thesis, these processes are studied at San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. The underlying problem of the airport is its outbound luggage system which was already suffering from delays prior to Covid-19. Delays were never measured and the bottleneck responsible for them was never identified. However, expected growth in passenger and flight volume necessitates to predict when customer dissatisfaction and extensive luggage delays are inevitable, given that the airport does not plan to change the baggage screening system in the near future. In order to understand the dependencies within said system, process flowcharts for baggage-related activities are defined and translated into a simulation model. After model verification and validation, scenarios of expanding the flight schedule during different times of the day are tested while monitoring the number of bags failing to be loaded into the respective aircraft in time. Further scenarios of model adjustments are used to monitor how the number of missed bags changes while maintaining an expanded flight schedule. Model adjustments were made by changing single parameters such as the scan time or single resources each. Simulation experiments have shown that the number of additional flights that can be added to the flight schedule of February 2020 depend on the time of the day. For instance, the current outbound luggage conveyor system’s capacity is sufficient to cover 1 additional early morning flight, and up to 3 afternoon flights. Experiments with model parameter adjustments led to identifying the luggage scanner as the bottleneck of the luggage system, whereas other tested parameter adjustments showed to have minimal impact on the number of missed bags. Since the model’s flight plan can be conveniently adjusted in the connected Excel database, the model could be used as a tactical decision tool for capacity analysis

OPTIMAL REASSIGNMENT OF FLIGHTS TO AIRPORT BAGGAGE UNLOADING CAROUSELS IN RESPONSE TO TEMPORARY MALFUNCTIONS

Being able to efficiently reassign outbound flights to baggage unloading carousels (BUCs) following temporary malfunctions is very important for airport operators. This study proposes an optimization model with a heuristic to solve the carousel reassignment problem. The objective is to minimize the total disturbance and overlapping time caused by the reassignment of outbound flights. A heuristic is developed to efficiently solve large-sized instances. The proposed approach is then applied to solve real-world instances of the problem at a major international airport in Taiwan. The computation time is about two minutes. The objective value obtained with the heuristic is more than 15% better than that obtained by the manual approach currently used by the operator. The improvement is gained mostly from the reduction in total temporal disturbance and overlapping time. The proposed approach could assist the operator in reassigning outbound flights to BUCs in response to malfunctions

Airport Passenger Processing Technology: A Biometric Airport Journey

A passengers’ traveling journey throughout the airport is anything but simple. A passenger goes through numerous hoops and hurdles before safely boarding the aircraft. Many airports today are implementing isolated solutions for passenger processing. Some of these technologies include automated self-service kiosks and bag tag, self-service bag drop-off, along with automated self-service gates for boarding and border control. These solutions can be integrated with biometric systems to enhance passenger handling. This thesis analyzes the current passenger processing technology implemented at airports around the world and their associated challenges that passengers face. A new passenger processing technology called a biometric single token identification (ID) is presented as a solution to help alleviate current issues. By using a medium-sized international airport as a case study, the results show that a single token ID is beneficial to the time it takes to process a passenger. Furthermore, it demonstrates that implementation of a single token ID with self-service technology can provide enhanced passenger travel experience, improving operational process efficiency, all while ensuring safety and security

DATASET2050 D2.1 - Data requirements and acquisition

The purpose of this document, Deliverable 2.1, is to describe the sources of data required by the H2020 coordination and support action DATASET2050. Data requirements have been categorised into seven broad groups to support WP3 and WP4: demographic; passenger demand; passenger type; door-to-kerb; kerb-to-gate; airside capacity and competing services. The current scenario is well supported by existing datasets, however the two future scenarios require modelled data

Managing Aircraft Ground Handling Delays in Vietnam Airlines by using Supply Chain Strategy

Punctuality is one of the key performance indicators in the airline industry and an important service differentiator especially for valuable high-yield customers based on the supply chain strategy. In addition, improved on-time performance can help achieve significant cost savings. Airlines report delay costs from 0.6 to up to as much as 2.9% of their operating revenues. Vietnam Airlines (VNA) stated that they want to convey passengers or freight from one point to another with maximum safety, efficiency and on time performance. However, within 12.34% of delayed flights in 2011due to aircraft ground handling (annual report’s TOC), VNA operation is not very effective in aircraft ground handling. The project is about aircraft ground handling process in VNA. Supply chain strategy can be used in airlines to improve its fluency

Correct Delay Code Assignment

The air transport market requires high investments, has elevated risks, and low financial return. The competition requires airlines to differentiate themselves by offering better services. On-time Performance (OTP) is an essential service; lack of punctuality affects company costs and revenues. An on-time company generates more satisfaction for travelers, retaining them. Flight delays are identified and reported by airlines through delay codes that are standardized by IATA. A detailed and specific analysis of an airline\u27s processes was performed to verify the quality of delay code allocation information. It also features the complete mapping of this company\u27s delay code allocation processes and the current quality of the delay code allocation information. In the analysis, comparing the same scenarios for the flights, routes, and departure and arrival times, we found process failures, information divergences, code allocation errors, and differences in the reasons for delays between airlines. This study generated new proposals for improving the current processes of this airline, ensuring data quality and integrity, process improvement. Other airlines can also use this study to identify and improve their delay code allocation processes