Forecasting Aircraft Movements: An Unavoidable Case of Uncertainty

Abstract

Forecasting long-term aircraft movements for airport and air traffic control master planning has become more challenging in an era of deregulation and privatised airports. The demand for air travel has become more responsive to changes in prices and to income levels and assumptions about changes in these factors introduce a key source of error into forecasts. Further problems arise in working from passengers to aircraft movement forecasts. The need to incorporate judgements about the types of aircraft likely to become used over a 20 to 30 year horizon indicates the importance of understanding the long-term factors influencing airline competition. The paper considers a well-documented and thorough study undertaken 20 years ago to identify the sources of errors. We argue that a key area of improvement is in the combination of qualitative information about the future and statistical analyses of past trends. Furthermore, there is value in shifting the emphasis from prediction to management of uncertainty. Scenario methods are proposed as a form of participatory forecasting that allows managers and planners to learn how to deal with uncertainty and how to concentrate scarce forecasting resources on areas with the greatest payoffs.