Aircraft design for low cost ground handling : the final results of the ALOHA project

Abstract

A significant reduction in turnaround time and costs can be achieved by changing the conditions of critical turnaround processes through an adapted aircraft design. The consideration of foldable passenger seats together with a continuous cargo compartment yields into a shoulder wing aircraft configuration with engines at the tail. The resulting enhancements in dis/embarking and off/loading yield, under the premise of masses and performance identical to an Airbus A320-like baseline aircraft, a reduction of 1.3 %... 4.0 % in total DOC per seat-kilometer. However, due to the necessary adaptations of the aircraft configuration, overall aircraft masses and fuel consumption increase. The predicted benefits in turnaround time and costs are not able to compensate this impact on the DOC elements, which results into an increase of total DOC per seat-kilometer.