ABSTRACT
In their air traffic forecasts, the aircraft manufacturing industry (e.g. Airbus, 2014) has a strong message: air traffic in terms of revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) will continue to grow and double in the next 15 years. However, EUROCONTROL has analysed the capacity development of European airports and compared future air traffic demand with airport capacity, with the result that by the year 2035, most likely 2 million flights out of a total of over 14 million flights will not be accommodated due to a capacity shortage at main airports (EUROCONTROL, 2013). In most instances, the capacity bottleneck is caused by the runway system, since people living around airports and exposed to aircraft noise and pollution (see Chapter 18) oppose the enlargement of runway capacity with the argument that further runways will intensify the noise problem.
