Capacity assessment of small airport passenger terminals using agent-based simulation: A case study of Comiso Airport

With the increase in air traffic and the resulting growth in the complexity of terminal operations, adopting optimal operational strategies has become a challenging task in airport management. To this end, numerous models have been developed to assess the quality of available services and the use of airport capacity. The objective of this study is to evaluate, through agent-based simulations, the impact of different traffic demand scenarios on the performance of an airport system, quantified by passenger waiting times and peak loads across various facilities. In particular, we have chosen as case study the regional airport of Comiso in Southern Italy. Our analysis tries to analyze passenger flow and explore the potential role of this airport as a complementary node capable of relieving the operational load of the international airport of Catania. The results show that changes in the number of open check-in counters and available security checkpoints significantly affect waiting times, queue lengths, and passenger density. Finally, both visual and quantitative representations of the scenarios are presented and compared.