Analyse der Verzögerungen beim Boarding von Flugzeugen und Untersuchung möglicher Optimierungsansätze

Abstract

Due to rising aircraft movements worldwide and rising cost pressure for airlines, the aircraft turnaround process becomes more and more interesting concerning optimisation. Therefore this thesis focusses on possible optimisation approaches of the boarding process as part of the aircraft turnaround process in order to enhance the punctuality by increasing the predictability and decreasing the variance of the duration of the turnaround process. In order to reach that goal a breakdown of all boarding related processes and an analysis of the boarding process related delays are performed. Based on this analysis the bottlenecks are identified as starting point for the identification of possible optimisation approaches. In addition, previous investigations are reviewed in order to identify in which way process improvements should have been gained according to these investigations and why the investigation results are not put to use today. Furthermore, a reference system is defined and a simulation model is set up. A conclusion about the benefit of possible optimisation approaches in regard of the boarding time and the predictability of the duration thus became possible. The defined reference system is based on the state of the art and can be adjusted to various boarding scenarios concerning variable parameters like passenger mix, etc. The simulation model represents the aircraft cabin, so that passenger processes as well as interactions can be simulated and evaluated. Based on the process analysis possible optimisation approaches are developed, which show the ability of reducing the negative effect of the bottlenecks or in the best case eliminate those bottlenecks. Afterwards, the effect of these approaches are simulated and evaluated in regard of their duration and predictability. Finally, an effort-benefit-analysis is performed to be able to draw profound conclusions about the benefit as well as the implementation feasibility. To put it in a nutshell, this thesis investigates the generation of possible approaches to optimise the aircraft boarding process by including the reasons of disturbances concerning the boarding system. For that purpose two main questions are to be answered:• What are the bottlenecks in the aircraft boarding process, which decrease today’s process performance?• Which optimisation approaches can improve the process performance and simultaneously have a good implementation feasibility