Impact of Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum Implementation on Airport System Infrastructures

This paper explores the impact of the reduced vertical separation minimum (RVSM) implementation on the airside of a large-airport system infrastructure. The hypothesis is that the frequencies of aircraft operations at the airport threshold, both for the departures and arrivals, will increase since almost double the number of aircraft can be operated in the same quantity of airspace when all flight levels in the RVSM environment are fully utilized. Simulation models are used to test these hypotheses. Airport systems with dependent parallel runways, intersecting runways, and independent parallel runway configurations are selected for our study. The analyses use the full-day traffic of the peak months at each airport as flight inputs and are conducted for both good and poor weather conditions. Not surprisingly, the results confirm that the RVSM implementation would aggravate delay on the airside of an airport system infrastructure, especially on the airfield where the capacity is limited and during the peak hours. The simulations provide insight into where improvements might be made. The methodology developed in this work to explore the factors that contribute to delay with the RVSM implementation is generally applicable to other airport systems.