Business aviation in Germany: An empirical and model-based analysis

The primary role of large airports is to serve the general public with scheduled and charter air transport services, with a secondary role of providing direct air transport access to regional industry and to firms who operate their own fleets of aircraft. Because of the complexity of slot allocation procedures and increasing runway capacity problems at airports, there is a growing problem in realising this secondary function. Neighbouring regional airports could play a complementary role and cope with some of this growth in traffic. Here we quantify the distribution of growing business aviation demand between airports to explore potential ways of accommodating it at both major and nearby secondary facilities.

► Increasing capacity constraints at major airports cause scheduling problems for business aviation.
► Neighbouring satellite airports could play a complementary role to major airports.
► Satellite airports could focus on business aviation with small aircraft.
► Runway length and technical infrastructure at satellite airports play a major role.
► Good accessibility to the satellite airport is critical for business passengers' acceptance.