Methodology to determine airport check-in counter arrangements

Abstract

Check-in area is an important component of airports. All passengers, except transit passengers and remote check-in passengers, have to enter this area prior to their departure. The convenience for passengers at this area is essential in order to gain more customers using the airports. In estimating the check-in counter arrangements, this thesis introduces a method that is based on spreadsheet software packages. Two programs are developed to assist the optimization computations. The programs provide the optimum number of servers required at the airport. This will help airport management to select the number of counters at a given time. The results of the execution process of these two programs indicate the variables, such as earliness distribution, service time, queue system, and the check in counter sizes and configurations have strong influence to overall cost. A number of applications have been attempted and distribution has been explored. The results also demonstrated that under the condition imposed the multiple queue system provides less maximum queue length but longer waiting time compared to single queue system.