Estimation of Aircraft Taxi-out Fuel Burn using Flight Data Recorder Archives

The taxi-out phase of a flight accounts for a significant fraction of total fuel burn for aircraft. In addition, surface fuel burn is also a major contributor to CO2 emissions in the vicinity of airports. It is therefore desirable to have accurate estimates of fuel consumption on the ground. This paper builds a model for estimation of on-ground fuel consumption of an aircraft, given its surface trajectory. Flight Data Recorder archives are used for this purpose. The taxi-out fuel burn is modeled as a linear function of several factors including the taxi-out time, number of stops, number of turns, and number of acceleration events. The statistical significance of each potential factor is investigated. The parameters of the model are estimated using least-squares regression. Since these parameters are estimated using data from operational aircraft, they provide more accurate estimates of fuel burn than methods that use idealized physical models of fuel consumption based on aircraft velocity profiles, or the baseline fuel consumption estimates provided by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Our analysis shows that in addition to the total taxi time, the number of acceleration events is a significant factor in determining taxi fuel consumption.