Airport Gate Allocation with an Environmental Focus: a VNS Approach considering Taxiing and Ground Service

The growth of air transport intensifies the need for more efficient decisions in the allocation of aircraft to the gates, especially at airports with heterogeneous infrastructure and operational constraints. In periods of higher demand, it is common for aircraft to wait for the release of service positions, increasing the time on the ground and the associated operational and environmental impacts. In this scenario, the Gate Assignment Problem (GAP) consists of defining which gate should be assigned to each flight, considering operational constraints and possible occupancy conflicts over time. In this work, the problem is approached from an environmental sustainability perspective, seeking to minimize the total impact of ground operations based on two main components: (i) the emissions associated with taxiing between runway and gate and (ii) energy and emissive impact associated with the service of the aircraft at the chosen gate. To solve the problem, an approach based on the Variable Neighbourhood Search (VNS) metaheuristic was developed, structured from an initial viable solution and the systematic exploration of different search neighbourhoods. The proposal considers movements of relocation and exchange of flights between gates, seeking to reduce the total environmental cost of the allocation while preserving the operational viability of the plan generated