Modeling Arrival Flight Times within the Terminal Airspace

Air traffic management efficiency in the descent phase of flights is a key area of interest in aviation research for the United States, Europe, and recently other parts of the world. The efficiency of arrival travel times within the terminal airspace is one of nineteen key performance indicators defined by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization, typically within 100 nmi of arrival airports. This study models the relationship between travel time within the terminal airspace and contributing factors using a multivariate log-linear model to quantify the impact that these factors have on the total travel time within the last 100 nmi. The results were compared with the baseline set of variables that are currently used for benchmarking at the FAA. The analyzed data included flight and weather data from January 1, 2018 to March 31, 2018 for five airports in the United States: Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, San Francisco International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, and LaGuardia Airport. The modeling results showed that there is a significant improvement in prediction accuracy of travel times compared with the baseline methodology when additional factors, such as wind, meteorological conditions, demand and capacity, ground delay programs, market distance, time of day, and day of week, are included. Root mean squared error values from out-of-sample testing were used to measure the accuracy of the estimated models.