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Transportation Dissertation
| Title | An Aircraft Life-Cycle and Conversion Scheduling Model for Airlines based on Operating Efficiency |
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| Year | 2006 |
| Summary | Shun-Fu Yang, 2006.06
Department of Transportation Technology and Management
National Chiao Tung University
In recent years, due to the steady revival of world economy and the strong development of China economy, the demand of air traffic from far east to the worldwide has been continuously increased no matter passenger or cargo volumes. However, there exist differences in terms of time gap and growth rate between passenger and cargo demand as regard to their relationships with economic cycles. This research aims to formulate a life-cycle model for an objective aircraft based on the concepts of aircraft life-cycle, time dependent profit gain, and operating costs. The differences in the characteristics of passenger and cargo fleets are also taken into account to formulate the expected revenues and operation costs for aircraft used for two types of services. The costs involved in the process of conversions are age-related and include opportunity costs in terms of loss in operating revenues. The decline in operating cost and the increase in operating revenue after aircraft conversion are also considered. Moreover, the study formulates a dynamic programming model by maximizing airline fleet operating efficiency, and applies Grey forecasting model and Markov Chain to forecast future cargo and passenger demand fluctuation. Then, the study combines the result of fleet model, and individual aircraft life-cycle model to evaluate the profit improvement due to conversion decision. Finally, the study illustrates the application of the models by performing a numerical analysis. The results show the optimal conversion time points for the example fleet, and indicate that improvements in the operating efficiency of aircraft conversion, depend on the extent of reduction in the expenditure and the increased level of air cargo demand on related air routes. The passenger demand on related air routes could be a major factor, which also affect the decision on leasing passenger aircraft to meet the demand. The results also reveal that the conversion decision can be considered jointly with the simplification of aircraft type. Furthermore, the depreciation amortization related to the efficiency of individual aircraft and financial feasibility are further incorporated into individual aircraft conversion decision. |
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