Investigating long-range aircraft staging for environmental, economic and travel time impacts

Ankit Tyagi, Purdue University

Abstract

The airline industry constantly looks to improve efficiency of operations. In the past, many of the biggest improvements have come from airplanes employing new technology, while better flight operations have provided some additional improvements. Recently, the concept of ‘staging’ airline operations has regained attention, driven largely by economic and environmental concerns. Staged airline operation breaks a long distance airline route into smaller segments, resulting in reduced total fuel burn for the trip compared to the non-stop flight. Theoretically, this method is straightforward, but it can be problematic to implement. Several factors contribute to the feasibility of staging. This thesis presents the problem of designing an aircraft specifically for staging as a multi-objective optimization problem to simultaneously address several factors. The objectives addressed in this study are: (1) fuel burn, which directly relates to CO2 emissions and reflects environmental considerations; (2) Direct Operating Cost (DOC), which reflects the considerations of airlines operating with staging on long routes; and (3) flight time, which reflects the considerations of the passengers choosing to fly on long routes. These objectives do show some competition. This study examines the effects of designing an aircraft for staging on a single long-distance route and of designing an aircraft for staging on multiple long distance routes. The latter study begins to reflect how an airline might deploy this new designed-for-staging aircraft to serve its network of routes. The results do show that staging reduces fuel burn but increases trip time and DOC. There is a limit to the number of stages for any giver route after which the disadvantages of increased time overtake any saving in fuel. When staging is considered for an airline with practical stops, the fuel savings is still present, but the additional distance added to the trip to make use of practical stops reduces decreases the theoretical savings in fuel while increasing the trip time and DOC.

Degree

M.S.A.A.

Advisors

Crossley, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Aerospace engineering

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