Title of Dissertation : Fair Allocation Concepts in Air Traffic Management

Title of Dissertation: Fair Allocation Concepts in Air Traffic Management Thomas W.M. Vossen, Doctor of Philosophy, 2002 Dissertation directed by: Professor M.O. Ball R.H. Smith School of Business Recently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the major airlines in the U.S. have embraced a new initiative to improve Air Traffic Flow Management. This initiative, called Collaborative Decision Making (CDM), is based on the recognition that improved data exchange and communication between the FAA and the airlines will lead to better decision making. In particular, the CDM philosophy emphasizes that decisions with a potential economic impact on airlines should be decentralized and made in collaboration with the airlines whenever possible. This proposal is motivated by the fairness issues that arise in the resource allocation procedures that have been introduced under CDM. While the fair allocation of resources has been and continues to be a major concern in the procedures that have been developed under CDM, its interpretation is oftentimes left implicit. In this proposal, we introduce and evaluate several potential approaches to fair allocation, using both multi-objective optimization models and cooperative game theory models. Subsequently we study how the dynamic nature of flow management impacts fairness, and introduce methods that may be used to manage the allocation of resources in this environment. In addition, we also consider the opportunities for increased airline control in a CDM-based environment. In particular, we study the potential benefits that can be obtained by the introduction of a framework in which airlines dynamically trade resources. Fair Allocation Concepts in Air Traffic Management by Thomas W.M. Vossen Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland at College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2002