Delays at Logan Airport

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In terms of weather, the smaller planes are the most affected due to wind vortexes. As mentioned throughout the text, PPP and its fixed costs would discourage the operation of smaller jets on the runway, reducing delays during adverse weather conditions. Furthermore, many regional airports can handle smaller aircraft. No airport in the Boston area should let smaller aircraft be a contributing factor in delays as they can simply be diverted to other airports. This would provide a win-win situation considering Logan would experience reduced delays and costs, while the regional airports experience additional growth and development.

Lastly, building an additional runway isn’t an effective solution for a number of reasons. First, the runaway wouldn’t solve any problem associated with both adverse weather conditions, and the inefficient combination of airplanes at Logan Airport. Second, not only would build an additional runway cost an estimated $100 million, but additional costs would have to be incurred due to charges from the city, communities and their lawyers due to their differing goals. Lastly, although an additional runway would provide an added option for planes to land, spreading out the planes and reducing delays, it seems that delays are mainly a problem during peak hours rather than continuous ones. PPP increases price based on increased demand and would thus stabilize the levels of supply and demand during peak hours; effectively solving their delay problems and reducing costs for Logan Airport. However, in the long-term, as demand is expected to greatly increase in the following year, an expansion can still be considered to ensure that Logan’s operations can benefit from this demand rather than limit its potential revenues. It would be appropriate to first gather upcoming results of the PPP integration to then address the further needs of the airport with more certainty.

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The model of waiting lines we used to evaluate methods for reducing congestion at Logan Airport have some assumptions that we have to make in order to be able to analyse the situation.

First, we assumed that for our model the service rate must be greater than the arrival rate. This assumption is fundamental for queuing theory and if it is not true, delay times go to infinity. However in real life, even if systems are often overloaded, they still can function. In the study case, the true delay time is not infinite. The airplanes are in the air waiting to land the next hour. Eventually, at a certain moment the arrival rate drops and the waiting line gets smaller and disappears.

Then, another assumption we made is that there is no seasonality. To evaluate weekdays peaking patterns and schedules, we used only available information which is for the month of August. The change in airplanes load factors and on average number of bookings which could be influenced by seasonal factors (average temperature, holiday periods, etc.) were not taken into account. Moreover, the load factor (65%) which was assumed being constant may change as well during peak hours.

Finally, there is not enough information about the composition of Logan’s airplane mix. We assume specific proportions for each type of plane even though it was clearly stated in the case that these proportions would be changing over the next 15 years.

It is important to take into consideration all limitations described above since they reduce the accuracy of our calculations and estimations.

APPENDIX

Figure 1: Delay times as a function of arrival rate (AR)

Arrival Rate (AR)

Delay incurred, in minute

40 planes/hr

3.60

45 planes/hr

4.57

50 planes/hr

6.55

55 planes/hr

12.52

59 planes/hr

60.50

Figure 2: Operating and passenger delays costs as a function of arrival rate (AR)

Plane’s type

Total delay costs per minute of delay per passenger, at load factor

AR=40 planes/hr

AR=45 planes/hr

AR=50 planes/hr

AR=55 planes/hr

AR=59 planes/hr

Turboprop

$4.02

$5.10

$7.31

$13.98

$67.57

Regional Jet

$3.09

$3.93

$5.63

$10.76

$52.01

Conventional Jet

$2.83

$3.60

$5.15

$9.85

$47.60

Figure 3: Revenues and impact of different possible landing fees

Plane’s type

Revenue per passenger, at load factor

Total revenue per plane, at load factor

Hypothetic total revenue per plane including fee and change on total revenue per plane incurred, at load factor

$150 fee

$200 fee

$250 fee

Turboprop

$230.00

$2,242.50

$2,092.50

-6.69%

$2,042.50