Influence of tower air traffic controller workload and airport layout on airport capacity

Air traffic controllers optimise airport capacity, that is, increase the number of aircraft movements per hour maintaining a limited delay. There are several definitions of capacity, which depend on the considered airport element. This study focused on the development of a method that allows evaluating the impact of tower air traffic controllers’ workload on airport capacity. It adapts a model for the workload of sector controllers designed by Eurocontrol to tower controllers and tests it on a heavily busy international airport. In order to collect controllers’ working times, a campaign data research has been carried out from which it was possible to extrapolate the hourly percentage of work of the various tower controllers using a fast-time simulation software. By imposing an hourly working threshold on tower air traffic controllers, it was possible to obtain a maximum number of manageable aircraft, which was compared with the airside capacity of the airport. The results show that the maximum traffic manageable from the airside would produce unacceptable workload for tower controllers, highlighting the link between airport capacity and human component.