Impact of weather conditions on airport arrival delay and throughput

Abstract

Weather events have a significant impact on airport arrival performance and may cause delays in operations and/or constraints in airport capacity. In Europe, almost half of all regulated airport traffic delay is due to adverse weather conditions. Moreover, the closer airports operate to their maximum capacity, the more severe is the impact of a capacity loss due to external events such as weather. Various weather uncertainties occurring during airport operations can significantly delay some arrival processes and cause network-wide effects on the overall Air Traffic Management (ATM) system. Quantifying the impact of weather is, therefore, a key feature to improve the decision-making process that enhances airport performance. It would allow airport operators to identify the relevant weather information needed, and help them decide on the appropriate actions to mitigate the consequences of adverse weather events. We present a methodology to evaluate the impact of adverse weather events on airport arrival performance (delay and throughput) and to define operational thresholds for significant weather conditions. Our results are computed from a dataset of over 750,000 flights on a major European hub and from local weather data during the period 2015-2018. We combine delay and capacity metrics at different airport operational stages for the arrival process (final approach, taxi-in and in-block). We introduce a new approach for modelling causal relationships between airport arrival performance indicators and meteorological events, which can be used to quantify the impact of weather in airport arrival conditions, predict the evolution of airport operational scenarios and support airport decision-making processes.