A model to optimize the airport terminal departure operations

The rapid increase in passenger traffic on the one hand and the slow expansion of airport capacity on the other have over the years limited the airport's capability to maintain satisfactory service to the customer. The main objectives of airport operators are the cost effectiveness and the customer satisfaction. These two indicators are related to the first two phases of an airport terminal departure operations that involve the check-in controls and the security controls. This paper proposes an optimization model that, given a certain layout and a passengers flow, decides the number of check-in desks and security control checkpoints to minimize a cost function. The cost function considers the costs of check-in and security control checkpoints and an estimate of the passenger dissatisfaction. The model develops an optimization algorithm that integrates a simulation module. The optimization algorithm is based on the surrogate method that minimizes the cost function that does not have a closed-form expression. To this reason, the simulation module reproduces the real scenario of the terminal operations and the passengers behaviour and calculates the value of the cost function. Tests have been conducted considering the real case study of Napoli-Capodichino (IT) airport.