General strategies for mitigating airport capacity constraints

Abstract Solutions to the capacity problem will vary from airport to airport and from region to region, depending on the severity and type of the capacity bottleneck, the financial situation of the airport owner and region or state and the regulatory framework governing in the region or state of the airport. A whole range of technological investment and non-investment options does theoretically exist. Furthermore, a spectrum of demand and supply management measures may be applied, ranging from pure administrative measures, such as regulations, to hybrid measures, such as slot coordination with secondary slot trading, to market-based options, such as congestion pricing schemes and primary slot trading. Therefore management measures, in particular, do not primarily aim at increasing the capacity, but rather at optimising traffic flows or increasing traffic volumes within given capacities, thus improving the utilisation of the existing infrastructure.