Design and Analysis of Computer Experiments Based on a Simulation Model of Air Traffic Flow Optimization in Panama

Abstract

There is a growing in number of operations in aviation all over the world. This growing is increasing the necessity of innovation and new technology to respond the increment of the demand. As a respond of this demand, FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is working with NextGen in the United States and the EUROCONTROL is implementing the Point Merge as solution in the air traffic flow management in Europe. However, the FAA alternative and EUROCONTROL alternative are not mutually exclusive since Panama, a small country in Latin America, is trying to use a combination between the vectoring approach and the Point Merge in the air traffic flow management. In addition, the AAC (Autoridad de Aereonautica Civil) and the Tocumen (Tocumen International Airport) are working in a continuous collaboration between FAA and Panama with the mutual challenge to improve the actual system. As a result, the main airline of Panama, the Compañía Panameña de Aviación (COPA Airlines), and the Autoridad de Aeronáutica Civil (AAC) constructed a simulation model to select an air traffic flow alternative that can be able to change the actual situation. In other words, COPA Airlines and AAC are pursuing the minimization of the numbers of conflicts, the number of sequence actions, the flight time, the track flight distance and the fuel burn. Furthermore, this study aims to use the final draft of this previous analysis based on a simulation methodology to conduct a Design and Analysis of Computer Experiments with the final objective to increment the statistical significance of the actual model.