This book presents a comprehensive analysis and modelling of demand,
capacity, quality of services, economics, and sustainability of the air
transport system and its main components - - airports, airlines, and
ATC/ATM (Air Traffic Control/Management). Airports consist of the
airside and landside area characterized by their capacities for handling
demand such as aircraft, air passengers, and air freight/cargo
shipments. Regarding spatial configuration, airlines generally operate
hub-and-spoke (conventional or legacy airlines) and point-to-point
(LCCs - Low Cost Carriers) air route networks. Their fleets consisting
of different aircraft types provide transport capacity for serving
demand including air passengers and freight/cargo shipments. The ATC/ATM
includes the controlled airspace, traffic management and control
facilities and equipment on the ground, space, and on board aircraft,
and the ATC Controllers). They all provide capacity to handle demand
consisting of the flights between origin and destination airports
carried out by airline aircraft. The outcome from the interrelationships
between demand and capacity at these components materializes as the
quality of services. At airports and airlines this is generally
expressed by congestion and delays of aircraft, air passengers, and
freight/cargo shipments. At ATC/ATM, this is expressed by delays,
horizontal and vertical in-efficiency, and safety of flights. Economics
of each component relate to its revenues, costs, and profits from
handling demand, i.e., providing services of given quality. The
sustainability of air transport system has become increasingly important
issue for many internal and external actors/stakeholders involved to
deal with. This has implied increasing the system's overall
social-economic effects/benefits while reducing or maintaining constant
impacts/costs on the environment and society at both global and
regional/local scale under conditions of continuous medium- to long term
growth.
