Assessment of the Ability of Existing Airport Gate Infrastructure to Accommodate Transport Category Aircraft with Increased Wingspan for Improved Fuel Efficiency

Abstract

The continuous trend of rising fuel prices increases interest in improving the fuel efficiency of aircraft operations. Additionally, since fuel burn is directly linked to aircraft CO2 emissions, reducing fuel consumption has environmental benefits. One approach to reducing airline cost and mitigating environmental impacts of aviation is to achieve higher fuel efficiency by increasing aircraft wingspan. One concern is that airports may not be able to accommodate increased-wingspan aircraft since existing gate infrastructure may have been sized for the past and current aircraft. This results in a potential tradeoff for airlines; increasing wingspan increases fuel efficiency, but it also limits the number of gates available to maintain current aircraft operations. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate this tradeoff...