Lenka Kontriková’s research while affiliated with VSB - Technical University of Ostrava and other places

The paper addresses the issue of evaluating the attractiveness of new airport connections, one of which is a global transfer hub and the other is a regional European international airport. The attractiveness of new connections expressed, for example, by predicting the demand for new flight routes has long been studied, mainly using gravity models. The aim of the presented paper is to check whether an approach based on gravity models could be replaced with other approaches, in this case by multi-criteria evaluation methods. Questions of substitution of approaches based on gravity models, compiled for demand prediction, are relevant in cases where there are not enough input data for existing gravity models. The absence of input data occurs especially in cases where either there is no historical data on the operation of flights, or historical data do not have current significance, e.g. the operation of the flight has been interrupted for a longer time. The results of a study carried out for Ostrava International Airport located in the Czech Republic, show that gravity models for which relevant data are not available can be fully replaced by multi-criteria evaluation methods.

The creation of a flight schedule and the associated crew planning are clearly among the most complicated tasks in terms of traffic preparation. Even with a relatively small number of pilots and aircraft, numerous specific constraints arising from real operations must be included in the calculation, thus increasing the complexity of the planning process. However, even in a precision-planned operation, non-standard situations often occur, which must be addressed flexibly. It is at this point that an operational solution must be applied, the aims of which are to stabilize the flight schedule as soon as possible and minimize the financial impacts resulting from the non-standard situation. These problems are resolved by the airline’s Operational Control Center, which also uses various software approaches to solve the problem. The problem is approached differently by large air carriers, which use software products to address it, and small and medium-sized air carriers, which resolve the issue of operational rescheduling intuitively, based on the experience of dispatchers. However, this intuitive approach can lead to inaccuracies that can lead to unnecessary financial losses. In this paper, we present an optimization model that can serve as a tool to support the decision-making of employees of the operations centers of smaller and medium-sized air carriers.

The consequence of social and economic changes in the Czech Republic included liberalization of air transport. After the politically bipolar Europe ceased to exist and the Czech Republic joined NATO, there was no need to keep so many military airports, which were therefore converted into civilian airports. Regional airports development used to be very slow which was related to their function. Contemporary pressure on air transport from regional airports to the world is very significant and most of the airports are trying to form or extend their current portfolio of new regular lines. The right choice of transit or final destination is very important for the development of a regional airport, especially from the point of view of the possibility of transporting passengers to the destination, from where they can best proceed to the world with one transfer. The selection of such suitable destinations can be done by applying the AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) method when the airports will be explored as variants through the criteria, which will be determined as important parameters for selection.