Forecasting Passenger Arrivals at the Gotham International Airport
Since the introduction of enhanced security measures by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2017, flights bound for the U.S. from Canada are subject to additional screening by airline security. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) has adopted some of these measures, including enhanced screening of laptops, tablets, and other personal electronics. These new measures have reintroduced the problem of long waiting lines and waiting times at security gates at some airports. One of the key components of any effort by CATSA to operationally improve airport security procedures while reducing passenger waiting times and inconvenience is forecasting passenger arrivals at security checkpoints to determine how many security checkpoints and staff are needed. At the Gotham International Airport, CATSA operations analysts would like to forecast passenger arrivals for next July, the airport’s busiest travel month of the year, for the purpose of determining how many security checkpoints they should staff during the month so that waiting lines and times will not be excessively long. Demand for airline travel has generally been increasing during the past three years. There are two main concourses at Gotham International, East and West, each serving different airlines. The following table shows passenger arrivals at the West concourse for 10 days (selected randomly) in two-hour segments from 4:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. for the month of July for the past three years. Develop a forecast for daily passenger arrivals at the West concourse at Gotham for each time period for July of year 4. Discuss the various forecast model variations that might be used to develop this forecast.