Evaluating passenger delays in the US domestic air transportation system

Abstract

A fundamental component of any National Airspace System (NAS) performance evaluation is the cost impact of air traffic delays, and more generally capacity limitations, on the traveling passengers. In previous research it has been conclusively shown that flight delay data and flight centric metrics fail to accurately represent the passenger travel experience and passenger trip delays accurately. This is because they do not capture the effect of passenger itinerary disruptions such as flight cancellations and mis connections. There are several complexities and subtleties underlying the conversion of flight delay data to passenger trip delay data, because of which delay cost to passengers is typically not measured accurately nor understood well. The primary aim of this thesis is to use the passenger-based metric, passenger delay, to capture the effect of itinerary disruptions, and evaluate the performance of the air transportation system from the passenger's perspective. A new methodology to improve current estimates of passenger delays relying solely on publically available data sources is reviewed. Later, the methodology is applied to estimate the magnitude of passenger delays in the US domestic air transportation system for the year 2007. The passenger trip data generated using this methodology is also used to carry out a comprehensive disaggregate analysis of air traffic delays in the US domestic air transportation system for the same timeframe.