Airport Availability Modeling

This study proposes a systems-level approach to airport and runway availability assessments and prediction, and addresses the problem of the aging or continuously degrading aviation infrastructure. Although the availability block diagrams are often used in the availability assessment of aerospace and electronic systems, their application to the airport availability problem on a systemlevel, developed in this study, is novel. The methodology developed in this paper is intended for short-term and long-term planning of the communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS) equipment acquisition. Improved understanding of the effects of equipment outages on airport availability is valuable in determining a required level of airport equipage and equipment reliability, particularly during critical situations, such as bad weather conditions and increased traffic demand. With proposed methodology an analyst can precisely quantify the additional level of airport availability achieved by upgrading or adding new pieces of CNS equipment at airports, and therefore better accommodate critical operating conditions. Consequently, this methodology should assist the Federal Aviation Administration to improve investment and modernization decisions related to CNS equipment, particularly at airports that require additional service availability.