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Airport Discrete-Event Simulation

A discrete-event simulation of a week of airport operations, estimating runway idle time under scheduled flights, random arrivals, maintenance, and weather.

How much of the time do an airport’s runways sit empty? This project answers that by simulating a full week of airport operations and measuring runway use, an estimate hard to compute analytically because too many random factors interact.

The simulation treats the airport as a discrete-event system: instead of advancing time continuously, it jumps from event to event (a flight arrives, a runway closes for maintenance, weather changes) and updates the state of the world at each one. The model combines scheduled flights with random arrivals and departures, runway maintenance windows, and weather that disrupts operations.

Written in Python from scratch (no simulation framework), with a report on the model design, the assumptions, and the results.

FACTS

Category: systems