Integrating Slot Exchange, Safety, Capacity, and Equity Mechanisms Within an Airspace Flow Program

In this paper, we study an airspace flow program in the context of weather‐related disruptions by augmenting the airspace planning and collaborative decision‐making model (APCDM). The proposed model selects among alternative flight plans for the affected flights while integrating slot exchange mechanisms induced by multiple ground delay programs (GDPs) to permit airlines to improve flight efficiencies through a mediated bartering of assigned slots, and simultaneously considering issues related to sector workloads and airspace conflicts, as well as overall equity concerns among the involved airlines in regard to accepted slot trades and flight plans. The APCDM is enhanced to include (a) the selection of slot exchange trade offers suggested by the airlines based on their allotted slots under a GDP; (b) connections between continuing flights; and (c) several alternative equity concepts. Both full and light versions of this model are developed and tested using realistic data derived from the enhanced traffic management system data provided by the Federal Aviation Administration.