Passenger Departure Process Modelling to Investigate the Effect of Variability for a Major International Airport

The special environment of any airport, especially a major international hub made process improvement and analysis difficult. This is due to the variability induced by several factors and which could potentially change, dramatically, at short notice. This made current research paper significantly different from previous simulation based approaches applied to improve the airport operations. Also, large, cumulative variations in demand set in an environment where rapid expansion of the airport is taking place also created major difficulties because of the shifting flow of passengers. This research paper demonstrated the application of discrete event simulation model of the airport much more accurate and detailed than those described in previous studies of passenger departure processes. This paper proposes a detailed modelling approach for departure process and several recommendations are made for further work to improve the airport check-in process operations.