Airport surface management strategies to balance throughput, taxi times and predictability in dynamic weather scenarios

New approaches to airport surface management are being developed to support a number of different objectives, ranging from reduced environmental impacts, to increases in throughput during convective weather events, to improved predictability and flexibility for flight operators [1]. To be effective, however, they need to support the coordination of work across the controllers in the airport Tower and traffic managers in the Tower, TRACON and ARTCC, as well as ramp controllers, dispatchers, air traffic control coordinators and pilots working for the flight operators [2, 3]. These new approaches must also support coordination with staff and contractors working for the airport operator [4]. This paper focuses on the need to coordinate across three of these groups, the traffic managers responsible for managing airspace constraints in the ARTCC and/or TRACON, the traffic managers responsible for coordinating airport surface queuing strategies, and the Departure Reservoir Coordinator (DRC), who is responsible for overseeing surface departure metering programs that manage the inventory at the spots.