ABSTRACT
Although a major capacity crunch is expected in the longer run (European Commission, 2006), still sufficient overall capacity is currently available at most airports if flight departures and arrivals could be distributed evenly over the operational hours of the airport. Most runways can handle up to 30 to 50 movements per hour, which means approximately 250,000 movements per year per runway if the airport is fully operational during 18 hours a day. Operational and legal constraints often reduce airport capacity to lower levels, as is illustrated in Table 13.3. The main congestion problems at most major airports are caused by peak hour traffic, which typically causes delays in the morning, around noon and during the evening. Delays during morning peaks can even cause a cascade impact and additional reactionary (Eurocontrol, 2007c) delays for the full day or even more when international connecting flights are involved (Murillo and Carlier, 2006). Peak-related delays should not be solved primarily by expanding airport infrastructure, but by optimising operational practices, which is the responsibility of airport operators, airlines and air traffic control (Eurocontrol, 2007b).
