• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2020

A significant growth in local air traffic volume is leading to airway congestion and flight delays especially for Incheon-China and Incheon-Europe sectors. A key method to increase the airway capacity is to place a supplemental airway parallel to the existing one and in cooperation between the aviation authorities between China and Korea, a dual airway track was implemented on December 6, 2018. Here, we use airline A's flight data to analyze the congestion change effect of the new airway. Results show total delay time to Europe is reduced 51% (13.4 to 6.6 minutes) as the delay distribution for 16-30 minutes, 31 minutes and greater decreased from 23.2% to 8.2% and 8.7% to 1.0% respectively. The delay to China also decreased but the drop is not as significant as flights to Europe. This is caused by the difference in flight distance, traffic volume, and characteristics of flights landing and transiting China. Flights to Europe show a broad distribution in altitude allocation and reduction in aircraft separation demonstrating the effectiveness of a dual airway track.