Air travel appears as particularly hazardous in a pandemic situation, since infected people can travel worldwide and could cause new breakouts in remote locations. The confined space conditions in the aircraft cabin necessitate a small physical distance between passengers and hence may boost virus transmissions. In our contribution, we implemented a transmission model in a virtual aircraft environment to evaluate the individual interactions between passengers during aircraft boarding and deboarding. Since no data for the transmission is currently available, we reasonably calibrated our model using a sample case from 2003. The simulation results show that standard boarding procedures create a substantial number of possible transmissions if a contagious passenger is present. The introduction of physical distances between passengers decreases the number of possible transmissions by approx. 75% for random boarding sequences, and could further decreased by more strict reduction of hand luggage items (less time for storage, compartment space is always available). If a second door is used for boarding and deboarding, the standard boarding times could be reached. Individual boarding strategies (by seat) could reduce the transmission potential to a minimum, but demand for complex pre-sorting of passengers. Our results also exhibit that deboarding consists of the highest transmission potential and only minor benefits from distance rules and hand luggage regulations.

In this study the potential for fuel savings through electric taxiing is investigated. Therefore simple models are used to investigate the difference of fuel consumption during the ground phase and the flight phase of a gate-to-gate mission. By using these models the fuel savings can be estimated, which are the sum of the fuel saved during ground operations and the additional fuel required during the flight phase due to an increased Operating Empty Weight. The models are applied to actual data of flights conducted by domestic carriers within the United States National Airspace System. Results show that electric taxiing offers the potential for fuel savings depending on the flight mission, i.e. the ratio of time an aircraft spends on ground and the flight distance. A parametric analysis is conducted to investigate the sensitivity of the results for different constraints. The study concludes with a comparison of the concept compared to other operational or technological measures aiming to reduce fuel consumption on ground. NomenclatureATU = Autonomous Taxiing Unit APU = Auxiliary Power Unit BTS = Bureau of Transportation Statistics DOC = Direct Operating Costs ESUT = Engine Start Up Time ECDT = Engine Cool Down Time F Blockfuel = Fuel for a flight mission F Ground = Fuel for ground operations F Airborne = Tripfuel FF Idle = Fuel flow of the main engines in idle mode FF APU = Fuel flow of the APU FAA = Federal Aviation Administration FCOM = Flight Crew Operating Manual ICAO = International Civil Aviation Organisation ISA = International Standard Atmosphere n eng = Number of engines NAS = National Airspace System NO x = Nitrogene Oxide OEW = Operating Empty Weight t Ground = Ground Time t Taxi-in = Taxi-in Time t Taxi-out = Taxi-out Time

This paper shows the first results of a multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) of the passenger service functions in the cabin. Therefore, both the placement of the components and the dimensions of the passenger supply channel (PSC) are varied. In order to modify the parameters, the individual components of the PSC are generated as objects using model based systems engineering. As a result, the information is stored in each object and can be used for the evaluation. In particular, the focus will be on passenger comfort and safety regulations. Collectively, this paper shows some possible variations for the arrangement of the PSC elements and discusses and compares the results obtained as well as possible future developments of this work.

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