Factors affecting airport route development activity and performance

Airports have become increasingly active in route development as a means of attracting, growing and retaining air services. However, little is known about the different levels of route development activity at airports, or the extent to which route development activity affects performance. Based on the findings of a survey of 124 airports worldwide, this study finds that larger airports are significantly more active than smaller airports. It also finds that private airports are more active than public airports, and that airports in Europe are more active than airports in other world regions, although differences according to ownership and location are not significant. Route development activity has a significant positive effect on performance. Factors associated with the airport business environment (market turbulence, competitive intensity, market growth and airport constraints) were not found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between route development activity and performance. However, two factors were found to have a significant direct effect on performance; market growth has a significant positive effect while airport constraints have a significant negative effect

Scaling Constraints for Urban Air Mobility Operations: Air Traffic Control, Ground Infrastructure, and Noise

The scalability of the current air traffic control system, the availability of aviation ground infrastructure, and the acceptability of aircraft noise to local communities have been identified as three key operational constraints that may limit the implementation or growth of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) systems. This paper identifies the primary mechanisms through which each constraint emerges to limit the number of UAM operations in an area (i.e. the scale of the service). Technical, ecosystem, or operational factors that influence each of the mechanisms are also identified. Interdependencies between the constraints are shown. Potential approaches to reduce constraint severity through adjustments to the mechanisms are introduced. Finally, an effort is made to characterize the severity of each operational constraint as a function of the density of UAM operations in a region of interest. To this end, a measure of severity is proposed for each constraint. This measure is used to notionally display how the severity of the constraint responds to UAM scaling, and to identify scenarios where efforts to relieve the constraint are most effective. The overall purpose of this paper is to provide an abstraction of the workings of the key UAM operational constraints so that researchers, developers, and practitioners may guide their efforts to mitigation pathways that are most likely to increase achievable UAM system scale