Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the airport with the most airport Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) delay in Europe in 2017. One of the causes of the ATFM delay is that airlines do not adhere to their allocated airport slots. With providing insights into deviation between flight schedules or flight plan and airport slot, causes of deviating to the airport slot are identified. This research is done by means of analysing the deviations to identify the characteristics of the deviations. In addition, interviews with airlines and a ground handler and literature about possible causes are used to provide insights. The main findings are that ~ 3.3% of the flight schedules deviate from the airport slot. The deviation between flight plan and airport slot is around 67% of arriving flights. This deviation of flight plans means that the estimated in block time (EIBT), deviates more than 5 minutes from the airport slot. Both in absolute amount and relative percentage, general aviation and cargo airlines are the business models that cause the most deviation between flight schedule and airport slot. An agreement between the general aviation ground handlers and the typical business of cargo are the main reasons for the deviation. The full-service carriers and low-cost carriers cause in absolute number, the most deviation between the EIBT based on flight plan and airport slots. If the EIBT, based on the flight plan, is earlier than the airport slot, more than 90% of these arrivals are planned earlier because of schedule buffers.
Graduated: June 2019