Secondary trading of airport slots as a combinatorial exchange

In our research we propose a market formalization of secondary trading of airport slots. This proposed market is managed through an individual rational and budget balanced combinatorial slot exchange. The suggested market mechanism allows consideration of en-route sector capacities during the slot allocation process. We quantify the potential advantage of the market by comparing it with current practice. The results show that solutions that appear optimal when neglecting en-route sector capacities can be infeasible when taking capacities into account. Finally, in the proposed market the existence of grandfather rights does not seem to affect airline costs in a significant way.

► We model the secondary slot trading as a combinatorial exchange. ► This model ensures individual rationality and budget balance. ► Bundles of slots connect airports respecting both airport and en-route capacities. ► We associate prices to sets of transactions rather than to single slots. ► We validate the model with a thorough experimental analysis on random instances.