Justification of rational requirements for aircraft of Russian regional aviation based on modeling of the air transport system considering perspective efficiency criteria

Abstract

The article addresses the issues of judicious choice of the most efficient aircraft for regional aviation of Russia for the purpose of eliminating transport discrimination of the population of the Russian Federation regions in terms of local traffic. Due to the high financial costs, the development of regional aviation is viable only in those constituent entities of the Russian Federation where the development of low-cost ground transportation is not feasible: most of these Russian Federation regions are attributed to the remote territories of the North-Western, Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern Federal Districts of Russia, therefore, this concern may affect the perspectives of up to 14 million people. The problem of minimizing the total costs to develop an advanced air transport system of local transportation (including airport infrastructure costs) is considered by selecting a well-targeted fleet of operated aircraft, taking into consideration the requirements for the quality of passenger service. The maximum local travel time is regarded as a quality criterion of local transportation. The calculation results for three- and four-type aircraft fleets are given. It is shown that the use of modern high-technology aircraft similar to the Pilatus PC-12NG allows us to reduce the level of transport discrimination almost to zero values, including sufficiently strict restrictions regarding the maximum local travel time of “2 hours”. At the same time, the increase of cruising speed up to more than 400 km/h is relevant specifically for aircraft with a capacity of no more than 9 passengers. For larger aircraft (type L-410), the issue of increasing speed is rather minor, since these aircraft are operated on flight distances of no more than 800 km. Concurrently, the total fleet of air transport vehicles in service amounts to 250–300 aerial vehicles. The obtained results can be used to specify the requirements for the advanced aircraft of local airlines.