International Passenger and Baggage Processing at John F. Kennedy International Airport

A computer simulation model (written in GPSS) was developed to analyze passenger and baggage flow through the International Arrivals Building (IAB) at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Capacities and staffing at various federal inspection, baggage claim, and sky cap areas can be initialized before each simulation. Given any input schedule of flights, the program utilizes stored information on processing rates and walking times to provide queue statistics, waiting times, and facility utilizations throughout the IAB as well as statistics for preselected individual flights. Results are being used to develop and evaluate physical and operational plans, especially as affected by the introduction of the new generation of larger aircraft.