Impact of Heavy Aircraft Operations on Airport Capacity at Newark Liberty International Airport

Abstract

Aviation System Performance Metrics (ASPM) departure and arrival rate data is collected for four common airport confi gurations at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) under Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) for the period 2007-2008. The effect of the number of Heavy (including Boeing 757) operations on overall airport throughput is then investigated. The investigation shows that Heavy departures and arrivals negatively impact overall airport capacity. Mechanisms by which controllers mitigate the e ffects of Heavy arrivals and departures are also identifi ed. A preliminary quanti fication of the impact of operations of Heavy aircraft is performed with a parametric estimation of the capacity of the airport. The findings of this empirical study highlight that Heavy aircraft departures introduce a very small effi ciency loss in terms of airport departure capacity. By contrast, under some runway con figurations, Heavy aircraft arrivals have a more detrimental e ffect on airport departure capacity.