A Study on Optimization of Operation Procedures in the Cul-de-sac Area of Terminals in Large Hub Airports

Large hub airports have widely adopted the finger corridor terminal configuration to obtain more contact stands. However, due to limited spatiotemporal resources and an imbalance in supply and demand, the U-shaped Cul-de-sac area formed between finger corridors has gradually become a bottleneck for efficient airport operations. To address restricted entry and exit of aircraft in the Cul-de-sac areas during peak hours, this study proposes optimization procedures for aircraft operations. By analyzing the structural characteristics and operational status of the Cul-de-sac areas, transportation engineering technologies are developed, and the formation operation procedures are proposed based on the current status and engineering-optimized technology. Considering the operational rules of aircraft in the Cul-de-sac area, an optimization model for the entire operational process is established, and a dynamic marshalling algorithm incorporating safety distance factors is designed to enhance efficiency. To compare operational efficiency before and after the optimization, validation is conducted using actual flight data from the Cul-de-sac area on the northwest side of Guangzhou Baiyun Airport. Three operational scenarios are compared: actual operations, formation operations and engineering-optimized formation operations. The results show that, compared with the baseline operations, the average operation time of full-time flights is reduced by 11.37% under formation operations and by 14.45% under engineering-optimized formation operations. Specifically, the average operation time of departure flights is reduced by 6.47% and 10.13%, while that of arrival flights is reduced by 20.27% and 22.31%. Moreover, flight delays are reduced by 45.94% and 58.42% respectively. Based on the current operations and the op-timized engineering technology, the number of flight groupings during the entire period is 29 and 34, respectively. The maximum number of flight groupings during peak hours is 3, which verifies the effectiveness of optimizing the flight grouping procedure in improving overall operational efficiency in the Cul-de-sac area under complex configu-rations and scenarios.