A detailed airside capacity study is key for capacity declaration purposes and following slot allocation.
Before opening of Doha’s new airport Hamad International Airport, Qatar Airways wanted to have an independent party to evaluate the airside capacity of the airport including, the runway system, aircraft ground flow operations and aircraft stand/gate requirements. The outcome of this study was used to support the declared capacity determination of the airport.
In order to gather detailed information and specific knowledge on the airpace /airport system, meetings and discussions with all relevant stakeholders (Airport Authority, Qatar Civil Aviation Authority, Qatar Airways Corporate Planning, etc.) have been performed. In the following, a deep analysis of airspace structure and historical flight movement data has been conducted in order to identify and understand the traffic flow and define a typical busy day to be used as baseline for the capacity calculations with CAST Aircraft.
Considering the traffic and peak structures of the selected typical busy day ARC conducted a simulation based determination of capacity values for all relevant parts of the airspace/airport system, i.e.:
These calculations have been done for several conditions and variation to get accurate knowledge on each relevant operational scenario such as:
The detailed simulations and calculations provided Hamad International Airport’s stakeholders with a clear overview of the potential of the airside under various operating conditions. The study provided valuable insights and recommendations for determining the declared capacity.
In addition to these results, ARC compared the capacity values at Hamad International Airport with other international airports with similar runway configurations (international benchmark). In this context, measures to increase capacity have also been proposed.
The services for this project have been provided in cooperation with IATA.
