Enhancing Customer Experience at King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) by Optimizing the Gate Assignment Process

Airport operations are becoming increasingly complex due to rapid technological advancements and the growing demand for air travel. This complexity necessitates airports to manage their assets optimally, and one of the critical assets is contact gates. Inefficient gate assignments can lead to significant disruptions, including passenger discomfort passengers, flight delays, and challenges for airlines in maintaining flight schedules. To address these issues, this study introduces an optimization model aimed at improving gate assignments while considering the maintenance status of Pre-Conditioned Air (PCA) systems. The model focuses on assigning gates based on their PCA status to reduce the wear effect on equipment and ensure adequate maintenance scheduling. A case study at King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) was applied to over 800 flights and 76 gates to verify the effectiveness of the model. The results demonstrated improvements in contact gate utilization, with all flights assigned to contact gates. Furthermore, more than 45.6% of flights were assigned to gates with good PCA status, although only 17.4% of gates were in good condition. To further analyze the model, the flights of an airline representing 47.8% of KAIA’s flights were benchmarked with their baseline assignment, and the results showed a 3% increase in contact gate assignment. Additionally, since gates with poor PCA status require an Air Conditioning Unit (ACU) rental at an additional cost, optimizing the assignment to prioritize gates with good PCA status significantly reduced the ACU rental costs by 94.03%.