Dynamic strategic and tactical air traffic flow control

The authors consider the problem of dynamically controlling the flow of aircraft heading toward an airport for which a reduction in capacity is expected due to unfavorable weather conditions. They use a stochastic programming formulation corresponding to a minimization of delay costs based on a probabilistic forecast of the capacity of the destination airport. Two types of control actions are considered: (1) ground-holds to be imposed on aircraft at their airport of origin beyond their scheduled departure time, to avoid costlier airborne delays; and (2) airborne delays to meter the arrival to aircraft at the destination airport. Together, these actions amount to a delay policy with a strategic as well as a tactical component. The purpose of the model is to find policies that strike an optimal balance between the strategic actions and the costlier tactical actions. Numerical examples are based on demand and capacity data for Boston Logan Airport