ALOHA - Aircraft Design for Low Cost Ground Handling
ALOHA was a joint research project. The duration was originally 2 years and 4 month. It started at the beginning of November 2007.
After an extension of the project duration, the project finished at the end of February 2011.
Partners
Tasks and Aim
Under this research project, innovative conventional aircraft designs were investigated and evaluated.
The aim was to reduce Direct Operating Costs (DOC).
Focus was on Low Cost Airlines (LCA) for which costs due to
ground operation at the airports (ground costs) have a high share amongst the total operation costs.
Measures to reduce ground costs can however lead to an increase in depreciation, fuel costs or maintenance costs.
For this reason, it was necessary to maintain a holistic view on aircraft design and operation.
Also technical features were investigated that have a potential to reduce ground costs.
The project included research into ground handling operations and associated costs at the airport.
LCA fly today with mostly Boeing B737 und Airbus A320.
Ryanair was the first European LCA founded in 1985.
The B737 was developed in the 60th,
the A320 in the 80th - also still at a time, where requirements of LCA
were not included into the aircraft design.
Aircraft manufacturers work on replacements for the models B737 and A320.
ALOHA helped to include LCA requirements already from the start into the development of the successors of current single aisle aircraft.
This lead to ideas for the optimization of these new designs taking also account of LCA.
Employees and Finances
The involvement of HAW Hamburg in the ALOHA project was financially supported with a grant of the
FHprofUnd programme
from the
Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
The grant was administered by the
Arbeitsgemeinschaft industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen "Otto von Guericke" e.V. (AiF).
Dipl.-Ing. Philip Krammer worked on ALOHA supported by Dipl.-Ing. Diana Rico Sanchez.
Up to June 2009 Dipl.-Ing. Francisco Gómez Carrasco worked on the project.
At ARC an equivalent of one engineer worked on the ALOHA project.
Work at ARC was paid by Airbus.
In total, 2.5 members of staff were part of the research project.
Also students supported the project.
Publications are listed on the German page.
LAST UPDATE: 24 April 2012
AUTHOR: Prof. Dr. Scholz
IMPRESSUM (PDF)
Prof. Dr. Scholz
Aircraft Design and Systems Group (AERO)
Aeronautical Engineering
Department of Automotive and Aeronautical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
