A new approach for the investigation of aircraft turnaround operation performance at airports is proposed in this paper. A Markovian type simulation model is used to simulate operational uncertainties arising from aircraft turnaround operations. Monte Carlo Simulation techniques are implemented to carry out stochastic simulations in order to capture the stochastic effects of flight punctuality and operational uncertainties. Two sets of flight data collected in a period of three months from a European airline are used in case studies. Simulation results, when compared with observations, show the close relationship between the departure punctuality of a turnaround aircraft and the length of scheduled turnaround time of an aircraft. It is concluded that the inherent schedule punctuality of a flight schedule is influenced by two factors: the amount of schedule buffer time included in the ground time of an aircraft and the operational efficiency of the turnaround. In addition, the proposed aircraft turnaround model is also a suitable managerial tool for airlines and aircraft ground service providers to evaluate the operational efficiency of turnaround operations.
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