A procedure to estimate the airport-level market share of itinerant GA operations by aircraft type

This study is to develop a procedure to estimate the market share of itinerant GA operations (MSIGO) by aircraft type at an airport. The procedure can be used, for example, by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and airport planners to make projections of itinerant operations by aircraft type for airport planning and improvements. Our procedure consists of two sub-procedures. The first one is a national level logistic model which separates the MSIGO by three fixed-wing aircraft types (i.e., piston, turboprop, and turbofan) from the other aircraft types. The second sub-procedure includes an airport-level logistic model and a national level estimation model. The airport-level logistic model is to estimate the MSIGO by each of the three fixed-wing aircraft types under IFR flight plan. The national level estimation model is designed to estimate the MSIGO by aircraft type under all flight rules. We validated our procedure using the statistics reported in the Air Traffic Activity System. In addition, we applied our procedure to the projections of itinerant GA operations made by the FAA in the Terminal Area Forecasting. Based on our results for the towered airports, between 2013 and 2018, the number of itinerant operations by piston and turboprop would decline at about 0.2% per year, and the number of itinerant operations by turbofan and the other aircraft types would increase at 0.75% and 1.33% per year, respectively.