Managing capacity at Heathrow

Every day, Heathrow Airport operates at over 98% capacity, a phenomenal achievement that drives the controllers in the tower to deliver the best service every minute of every day.

With such a busy operation, a deliverable and resilient schedule is key and anything that can be done to improve the resilience of that schedule makes a huge and beneficial impact – for the airport, airlines and the passenger experience.

I recently spoke to ITV Meridian about a new and innovative capacity management tool that has been introduced at the airport and has already been used to plan for the winter schedule later this year.

Working together with partners Siemens Postal, Parcel and Airport Logistics, McLaren Applied Technologies and AVTECH Sweden AB, the analysis tool can simulate a day of operations at Heathrow. It can predict what effect various disturbances may have on the day’s schedule, such as snow, fog or an aircraft fault – giving the controllers and the airport’s operational teams the valuable information needed to plan more effectively and mitigate against disruption to the passenger.

We operate on a knife-edge every day at Heathrow and while there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution to the capacity issue, anything we can do to contribute to a better running of the flight schedule at the world’s busiest two-runway airport is going to benefit everyone.

To see the interview on ITV, please click here:

http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/update/2014-05-15/airport-introduces-formula-1-technology-for-flights/