Impact of a new long-range aircraft concept considering aircraft sharing on airline fleet scheduling

Novel aircraft and operational concepts imply changes of important operational parameters and thus of the whole air traffic network structure. Following the introduction of a holistic concept for long-range air travel proposed by Bauhaus Luftfahrt e.V., the paper at hand assesses its impact on airline fleet scheduling. The concept includes a hydrogen powered aircraft operating at reduced flight speeds of M=0.7 as well as the possibility of aircraft sharing. Considering airline flight schedules, the impact of the proposed concept on required fleet counts is estimated. Here, variable turnaround times and maintenance requirements play a central role. The applied method is based on a flight planning tool deriving optimized aircraft flight schedules. Considering different aircraft sharing strategies and turnaround times, the required fleet counts to serve current airline networks as well as shared networks using both traditional and proposed concept aircraft are derived. It is shown that aircraft sharing reduces the total amount of aircraft required to serve a given network under the given conditions. However, fewer aircraft can be saved as a result of sharing than are required to compensate for the increased demand resulting from decreased flight speeds.