Model for Evaluation of Aircraft Boarding Under Disturbances

Aircraft boarding is one of the most essential handling processes carried out at an airport. Its importance derives from the fact that it is part of the critical path; that is, the time of its completion determines the aircraft’s departure time. It is desirable to examine how the efficiency of the boarding process changes depending on the disruptions that may occur. It is particularly important to check how they affect existing and partially applied boarding strategies that are assumed to improve the process. This article aimed to develop a microscale model of the boarding process implemented as a hierarchical, timed, colored Petri net (HTCPN). This model makes it possible to consider various disturbances in the boarding process, two of which were the subject of simulation experiments that were realized. As a result, it was found that due to disruption, not only did the effectiveness of boarding strategies change, but also their ordering relative to the total completion time of the process. This led to the conclusion that using models similar to those presented in this article is necessary, where input parameters can be determined dynamically. This means that it can be recommended to observe the currently ongoing boarding and, if any disruption is detected, perform a fast simulation to answer the question about the most advantageous boarding strategy in this situation.