A Method for Forecasting Commercial Air Traffic Schedule in the Future

Since its founding, NASA has been dedicated to the advancement of aeronautics and space science. The NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Program Office plays a key part in helping NASA maintain this important role. The NASA STI Program Office is operated by Langley Research Center, the lead center for NASA's scientific and technical information. The NASA STI Program Office provides access to the NASA STI Database, the largest collection of aeronautical and space science STI in the world. The Program Office is also NASA's institutional mechanism for disseminating the results of its research and development activities. These results are published by NASA in the NASA STI Report Series, which includes the following report types: • TECHNICAL PUBLICATION. Reports of completed research or a major significant phase of research that present the results of NASA programs and include extensive data or theoretical analysis. Includes compilations of significant scientific and technical data and information deemed to be of continuing reference value. NASA counterpart or peer-reviewed formal professional papers, but having less stringent limitations on manuscript length and extent of graphic presentations. • TECHNICAL MEMORANDUM. Scientific and technical findings that are preliminary or of specialized interest, e.g., quick release reports, working papers, and bibliographies that contain minimal annotation. Does not contain extensive analysis. • CONTRACTOR REPORT. Scientific and technical findings by NASA-sponsored contractors and grantees. • CONFERENCE PUBLICATION. Collected papers from scientific and technical conferences, symposia, seminars, or other meetings sponsored or co-sponsored by NASA. • SPECIAL PUBLICATION. Scientific, technical, or historical information from NASA programs, projects, and missions, often concerned with subjects having substantial public interest. • TECHNICAL TRANSLATION. English-language translations of foreign scientific and technical material pertinent to NASA's mission. Specialized services that complement the STI Program Office's diverse offerings include creating custom thesauri, building customized databases, organizing and publishing research results. .. even providing videos. Introduction BACKGROUND This report describes a series of models that will predict the air carriers' operations in the future as demand for air travel increases more rapidly than the ability of the National Airspace System (NAS) to accommodate flights in today's patterns. The work advances the discussion of NAS capacity beyond the level of recent dire forecasts that we are going to see massive flight delays in the United States in about a decade [1,2,3,8]. Those huge delays will not actually happen. They would occur if air carriers attempted to meet all future demand …