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Departure lounge sizing and optimal seating capacity for a given aircraft/flight mix — (i) single gate. (ii) several gates.

Wirasinghe, S.C. / Shehata, M.

Abstract

The size and seating capacity of an airport departure lounge is considered. The lounge capacity in terms of passengers is fixed for a given aircraft/flight type and subject to the constraint that boarding commences as close as possible to the door closing time. The lounge area for passengers is a function of the number of seats and standing‐spaces since the area for a seat is approximately 50% greater than the area for a standing space. An optimal number of seats and a related lounge size exists for a given aircraft/flight type, if a penalty is attached to compulsory passenger standing time in comparison to time spent sitting. The objective of the optimization is the minimization of the lounge cost plus the total penalty for standing passengers. An approximate closed form solution is obtained when the passenger arrival rate into the lounge is from a security check at the lounge entrance. The sensitivity of the lounge size to the penalty per passenger per hour is investigated. The analysis is extended to cover the case of a mix of aircraft/flight types using a gate. The size of a lounge that is shared by several gates is also analyzed. The necessary lounge capacity can be reduced by up to 50% by combining several lounges.