HONOLULU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF CHARACTERISTICS AND FLOWS

PI: Panos D. Prevedouros
co-PI: C. S. Papacostas
Research Assistants: Sanjay Kawad, An Ping
Sponsor: Airports Division, Hawaii Department of Transportation
Project Duration: 1991-1994

The goal of this project was the collection and analysis of data which are routinely gathered by the Airports Division of the Department of Transportation of the state of Hawaii. The main focus of the analysis was on the largest of the public airpor ts managed by the Airports Division, the Honolulu International Airport (HIA). In the trends analyses, however, annual data from other major airports (Kahului, Lihue, Keahole, Hilo and Molokai) were included.
The objectives of the project were the identification of data sources, the integration of data sources and the demonstration of the types of analyses that can be conducted with the data that are readily available to the Airports Division. Most of th e existing and routinely collected data have important uses in planning and forecasting applications, particularly if they are enriched with demographic and economic descriptors from nations, and states or regions of the U.S.A. where a large number of vis itors originate.

Procedures of analysis were developed for passenger, cargo and mail traffic, flight arrivals and departures, the diurnal distribution of operations, load factors, aircraft types, arrival and departure delays, aircraft ground time, and aircraft return s due to mechanical problems. An innovative way of profiling the operations of airlines was also developed.

As a funded extension to this research unique model system is described in which separate models are developed for each origin region or country. The models are estimated with the Cochrane-Orcutt regression procedure. Major explanatory variables inc lude the GNP or GDP (in various forms such as real, per-capita, etc., transformations and lagging), the CPI and the population of the origin countries. Exchange rates, strength of currencies and dummy variables for wars, recessions and airline strikes ar e also introduced. Future values for explanatory variables are obtained from publications of major economic organizations, thus, the future use of the model system depends only on the periodic update of variable values from regularly issued publications.

We were pleased with our models' ability to capture Hawaii's tourist arrivals after the sharp declines in 1991 and 1992.

Results from this study are in papers published in Transportation Research Record 1461 and 1506.