Assessment of the ability of existing airport gate infrastructure to accommodate transport category aircraft with increased wingspan for improved fuel efficiency

Abstract

The continuous trend of rising fuel prices increases interest in improving the fuel efficiency of aircraft operations. Additionally, since fuel burn is directly linked to aircraft CO2 emissions, reducing fuel consumption has environmental benefits. One approach to reducing airline cost and mitigating environmental impacts of aviation is to achieve higher fuel efficiency by increasing aircraft wingspan. One concern is that airports may not be able to accommodate increased-wingspan aircraft since existing gate infrastructure may have been sized for the past and current aircraft. This results in a potential tradeoff for airlines; increasing wingspan increases fuel efficiency, but it also limits the number of gates available to maintain current aircraft operations. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate this tradeoff. In this thesis, a study on the existing gate infrastructure and gate utilization was performed using recorded aircraft operations from 2010 at seven U.S. airports. Initial analysis of existing gate infrastructures was conducted at these airports for the number of gates available at an airport for a given wingspan. As wingspan increases, the number of gates at an airport that can accommodate the aircraft decreases. In current operations, it is common for aircraft to be scheduled at gates capable of accommodating larger aircraft. By analyzing this gate usage, the potential to increase wingspan without modifying gate infrastructure was quantified. It is also possible to utilize an open adjacent gate in order to accommodate an aircraft with increased wingspan. By analyzing scheduled aircraft operations, it was possible to determine the ability of existing gate infrastructure at each analyzed airport to accommodate aircraft by use of available adjacent gate. There appears to be opportunity to accommodate a significant number of Group III aircraft with wingspan increased to 124 ft with minimal gate infrastructure change required at most of the airports analyzed. The airports that limit additional increase past 124 ft are the perimeter-restricted airports, LGA and DCA. When LGA and DCA were removed as limiting airports, there was opportunity for a number of aircraft to increase wingspan to as high as 200 ft when taking full advantage of the entire width of utilized gates, and as high as 225 ft with the use of available adjacent gates.