Page 203 - Planning and Design of Airports

168 Airp o r t Pl anning

For the most part, the methods used in the study of new airports
are similar to those used for existing airports. However, the principal
difference is the inability of the analyst to obtain a local historical
database to generate extrapolation trends, market shares, or econo-
metric models. To overcome this deficiency, an attempt is usually
made to forecast by drawing an analogy between the subject airport
and other existing airports which demonstrate similar traffic experi-
ence, and which are located in areas possessing similar socioeco-
nomic, demographic, and geographic characteristics. Forecasts are
then made for the airport under consideration by using these airports
as surrogates and adjustments are performed to accommodate
expected differences between the airports. In the past, the Air Trans-
port Association and the Federal Aviation Administration have col-
lected and tabulated a significant amount of data for many airports.
These data have included the number and distribution of commercial
air carrier operations, fleet mix, and passengers on a peak and aver-
age monthly, daily, and hourly basis. It is apparent that one may
expect a rather high degree of uncertainty associated with forecasting
through such an analogy.

The Future Aviation Forecasting Environment
Many of the forecasts made by the various aviation-related organiza-
tions become biased by the impact of recent events. Forecasts made in
the early 1960s showed rather moderate growth, whereas those made
in the late 1960s showed fairly ambitious growth. These forecasts
were made in the context of expectations which reflected the behav-
ior of aviation at the time when they were made. In the 1970s and
1980s, the overall economic conditions, the availability and cost of
petroleum-based fuels, and airline deregulation considerably affected
aviation. Forecasts made in this era attempted to analyze the impact
of these factors in projecting the demand for aviation in the future.
The Federal Aviation Administration and numerous other trans-
portation organizations are always looking into the future of aviation
[2, 12]. As far as future trends in air travel are concerned, it is expected
that there will be a greater growth of international air traffic which has
been attributed to the globalization of the airline industry and to
changing market forces in the United States. The factors which have
contributed to the rise of the U.S. air transportation industry are
changing. The steady decline in the real cost of air travel has reached
a point in which the unit costs in the 1990s will remain steady or slowly
rise. The increased quality of service from improvements in the speed,
comfort, convenience, and safety of air travel has been largely real-
ized. Past demographic and cultural factors, such as the baby boom,
are declining in importance. The rise in family discretionary income
has peaked and the use of discretionary income for air travel is meeting