A Path Stretching Model for Effective Terminal Airspace Management

This study presents a mathematical model to optimize the total fuel consumption per aircraft for the aircraft landing problem (ALP) using the path stretching (PS) method. The PS model applies vector maneuver (VM), speed reduction (SR), and flight path angle (FPA) change methods for aircraft operation. In addition, two different mixed-integer linear programming models utilizing the point merge system (PMS) are presented to compare the PS model as PMS is a widely used method in ALP. The first PMS model uses the VM to handle arrival traffic and solve aircraft conflicts. The second one implements the VM and the SR techniques. Furthermore, an exact solution algorithm is selected to obtain the optimal solution. The PS model aims to increase the number of continuous descent operations by eliminating the level flights. Two different linear regression equations are generated to calculate the fuel consumption and flight time values in descent operations considering realistic aircraft parameters, FPA, and average airspeed. The results demonstrate that the PS model can reduce the total fuel consumption per aircraft by 8.94% and 3.45% compared to the PMS models.