Diversion Ahead: Modeling the Factors Driving Diversion Airport Choice

Abstract

When airlines and air traffic controllers in the United States decide how to divert flights en route to an airport that is experiencing a complete or partial outage, their decisions determine the resiliency of the aviation network: the speed at which passengers, crew, and the aircraft are recovered. In the following study, the relationship between the choice of diversion airport and the characteristics of an intended destination airport and the individual flights are investigated. Using a binomial logit formulation and data for every diverted domestic flight between 21 and 216, it is found that flights are more likely to divert to small airports—those that do not act as airline hubs and carry relatively few passengers and flights—when the intended destination airport of the flight is experiencing a complete or partial outage; the effect is even stronger when the airport experiencing this complete/partial outage is a hub of the airline operating the flight to be diverted. The findings indicate that, when faced with a full or partial airport outage, airlines favor a strategy of diverting flights nearby their intended destination, particularly if the airport experiencing the completely/partial outage is a hub, and waiting until the outage clears, instead of diverting to a distant airport with many flights that would allow passengers to be reaccommodated. While this strategy allows airlines the possibility of recovering their operations (with delay), it may not offer a resilient outcome when airlines are recovering from climate events, which may be long in duration and far-reaching such that proximate diversion airports are affected. As climate events threaten to become more frequent and intense at coastal airports, and the frequency and intensity of events may be more uncertain, airlines should modify their diversion plans and preferences to focus on passenger reaccommodation.