Abstract:
Flight scheduling is the process of producing a flight plan to describe a proposed aircraft flight being boarded for different purposes and capacity refers to the ability of an airport to handle a given volume of traffic (demand). Delay is a prominent event mostly experienced at the airport by both airlines and passengers. Globally, delay is permitted at 15mins later than the scheduled time. This research reports the assessment of aircraft flight schedule and capacity utilization at Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA). Delay is the major indicator for performance. Aircraft not adhering to scheduled flight results in increased airport congestion, cancellation of flight and flight delay. This study made use of primary data through a well structured questionnaires to obtain information from selected Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) staff at the MMIA. Secondary data were obtained from Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on the various capacities available at the airside, the runway is the major concern of this research. This research adopted the daily traffic flow of aircrafts for a period of two months and total traffic flow for a period of 16years from NAMA. Airlines were examined for two months under the MMIA (teriminal 2) to know the deviation of scheduled flight from actual flight. Furthermore, an operational delay report for a month was evaluated. Queue theory, descriptive analysis, wilcoxon rank test, factor analysis, step wise regression and multi-nominal regression were the statistical tools deployed for this research. Findings reveal that the runway is adequately utilized for the domestic wing but for the international wing of the runway it is underutilized. The time between arrivals of aircrafts at the domestic wing to the international wing of the runway is on an average of 5mins to 1 hour. On a monthly basis, 63% of the domestic traffic flow is delayed. Also, the major factor responsible for delay is aircraft maintenance. This study therefore recommends that MMIA should have adequate allowance incorporated into scheduled time of flight, and the capacity of the airside should be reviewed for domestic traffic as it accommodates more traffic flow and experiences more delay.
