To mitigate ATFM delay, different approaches have been proposed so far which can be categorized into strategic and tactical domains. The strategical techniques mainly concern airport slot allocation and for the tactical domain, the ATFM function has several solutions available that range from the ground and air holding to rerouting actions, which have not gained significant efficiency in ATFM delay mitigation due to the fact that delays become apparent only on the tactical level when the strategic flight plan has been filled already. To tackle and address this problem there is a need for an algorithm that can synchronize strategical and tactical schedules. To fill this gap, in this paper the concept of fair buffer scheduling is proposed which can potentially contribute to strategical and tactical operations synchronization that would result in ATFM delay mitigation by increasing the system's robustness. The objective is to obtain an optimum fair and efficient buffer choice that mitigates ATFM delay and increases the stakeholders' welfare. Each appropriate and efficient approach requires a comprehensive understanding of the strategical buffer scheduling. This study presents a delay cost and flight buffer model that could be used for generating optimal buffer times to be considered as the initial population for the optimization problem to investigate the viability of employing fairness measures to obtain schedules with different trade-offs between cost, delay, and fairness.

翻译：为缓解空中交通流量管理（ATFM）延误，目前已有多种方法被提出，这些方法可分为战略层面与战术层面。战略技术主要涉及机场航时分配，而战术层面中，ATFM功能提供多种解决方案，包括地面等待、空中等待及航路改航等措施。然而，由于延误仅在战略飞行计划已确定后的战术层面才显现，这些方法在缓解ATFM延误方面效率有限。为应对并解决该问题，需要一种能够协调战略与战术计划的算法。为填补这一空白，本文提出了公平缓冲区调度的概念，该概念有望促进战略与战术运行同步，从而通过提升系统鲁棒性缓解ATFM延误。目标是获得最优且公平高效的缓冲区选择，以缓解ATFM延误并提高利益相关者福祉。每个适当且高效的方法都需要对战略缓冲区调度有全面理解。本研究建立了延误成本与航班缓冲区模型，可用于生成最优缓冲区时间，作为优化问题的初始种群，以探究采用公平性度量方法获取不同成本、延误和公平性权衡方案的可行性。