What-if Analysis in Total Airport Management

This paper addresses design requirements for a what-if tool for airport management. First it provides an overview of the challenges in airport management and the need for a what-if tool. Following this motivation, theoretical and existing solutions of what-if systems are presented to conclude on an approach for a what-if system design specifically for the Total Airport Management (TAM) concept. TAM requires the cooperation of relevant stakeholders at an airport working towards different company specific goals yet trying to optimize overall airport operations. As the interactions between the various processes are highly complex the effects of an individual action on overall operations are not easily understood. Hence there is a need for a process to predict the overall effects of any action and to allow a comparison between several options. This will be provided by a what-if analysis tool, which provides a major component of a cooperative decision support system.