Detailed Airport Operations Statistics

Somedudeintn

Somedudeintn

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somedudeintn
Does anyone know if detailed airport operations statistics are available? Ideally I would be able to look up daily number of operations, or even hourly. I'm guessing that this is not available, but thought at least I'd ask. Trying to minimize time waiting on the ground at PDK by figuring out what days it is least busy. I guess I could always listen to LiveAtc and figure it out myself...

Thanks for any help!
 
LiveATC sounds like the best option for ease of access.

At a small airport like SNL, we go through all the radio calls and mark down arrivals/departures/touch and goes/ILS approaches/etc and keep them for records, I believe due to grants and other funding. For larger airports like PDK, the tower might have some kind of system that you could ask about.

That being said, activity varies widely from week to week, be it weather or holidays or travel season. If you get a week's data, it probably won't be representative of all weeks!
 
Somedudeintn said:
Does anyone know if detailed airport operations statistics are available? Ideally I would be able to look up daily number of operations, or even hourly. I'm guessing that this is not available, but thought at least I'd ask. Trying to minimize time waiting on the ground at PDK by figuring out what days it is least busy. I guess I could always listen to LiveAtc and figure it out myself...

Thanks for any help!
Click to expand...

Like this?

http://www.fltplan.com/AwMainToAirportSearch.exe?a=1

image.jpg
 
My personal opinion is this operation statistics are pure fantasy. Last airport I was based at, small reliever airport, figure a 14 hour operational day(which is realistic) and it was about 12 per hour over the 14 hours. I have never seen that many ever. Asked the line guys what an average daily was and he guessed about 30, which I would buy into it based on my opbservations only. I think those numbers published are used to get more grant money to waste, I mean expand the airport. Above mentioned airport built an additional acre ramp and only one airplane tied down on it, how many millions did that cost for new fances, relocation of taxiway, dirt work, asphalt, etc. In an industry that is dying too much is spent with no clear return.
 
According to the Air Traffic Activity System, PDK is least busy on the weekends.

ATADS : Tower Operations : Day Of Week Report
From 01/2014 To 12/2014 | Facility=PDK

Average Daily Tower Operations
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Weekdays Weekends
391 400 422 466 466 452 363 441 377


The FAA has the tower's hourly traffic count numbers, but you'd have file Freedom of Information Act request to get them.
 
kkoran said:
According to the Air Traffic Activity System, PDK is least busy on the weekends.

ATADS : Tower Operations : Day Of Week Report
From 01/2014 To 12/2014 | Facility=PDK

Average Daily Tower Operations
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Weekdays Weekends
391 400 422 466 466 452 363 441 377


The FAA has the tower's hourly traffic count numbers, but you'd have file Freedom of Information Act request to get them.
Click to expand...

Awesome, I'm surprised Saturday is the lowest, but I guess all those corporate guys want the day off.
 
From what I have seen, much non-towered airport "data" is just wild guesses and usually optimistic ones at that. We kept an actual count over the last several years and our numbers dropped significantly from the previous numbers.
 
Data for larger airports probably is a little more realistic, but when the FAA inquires to us smaller airports each year, it's mostly estimation based on what we see. Some smaller airports do better than others (keeping aircraft counts and so forth), but for the most part, it's just a SWAG. ;)
 
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