This paper deals with an investigation of the influence of different airport airside area layouts/configurations and Air Traffic Management (ATM) tactics on flight efficiency in terms of time and costs. For given airport layouts/configurations, air traffic demand, and different ATM tactics, some experiments are performed using SIMMOD simulation. Aircraft throughputs and delays, fuel consumption and noise and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are estimated and evaluated. Based on these, flights time and cost inefficiencies are calculated taking into account the cost of fuel consumed, noise generated and GHG emissions, and crew and passenger delays. An analysis of derived inefficiency indicators shows that different airport airside area layouts and ATM tactics could result in different airport functioning efficiencies, which further imply significantly different time and cost efficiency of the flights concerned.

Unmanned aircraft are increasingly recognized for their potential to enhance healthcare logistics, offering rapid and reliable transport solutions. Among the many envisioned use cases, emergency medical deliveries stand out as particularly promising due to their immediate societal value. This study investigates the potential of drones operating under U-space to support hospital-to-hospital emergency deliveries in Madrid. Using the GEMMA tool, we modeled and simulated operations with two drone types along direct routes between four hospitals, resulting in six hospital pairs. Drone travel times were estimated and compared against road transport times obtained from the Google Routes API, incorporating one week of traffic data to capture daily and weekend variability. The results show substantial advantages of aerial transport, with time savings ranging from 2 to 26 min, equivalent to 35–58% compared to road transport. Drones consistently ensured deliveries within 15 min, outperforming regular cars (39%) and ambulances or motorcycles in highly congested periods. Sensitivity analysis confirms their reliability in scenarios with strict time constraints, especially under 15 min. These findings demonstrate that drones reduce travel times and improve predictability, providing a robust evidence base for policymakers and regulators to advance U-space integration in healthcare logistics.

The social potential of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) as a greener and faster transportation system in and around urban environments is indisputable. Nevertheless, the success of UAM introduction and its wide use will strongly depend on acceptance by the citizens and future UAM users. The impact on overall quality of life, as a multidimensional concept that encompasses physical health, mental and emotional well-being, economic status, education, and the environment, is becoming a significant issue. This paper aims to describe the performance framework for the assessment of the social and environmental impact of UAM. The specific objectives are to identify the full range of UAM’s impacts on citizens’ quality of life and to propose a set of indicators that enables the quantification and assessment of the identified impacts. Firstly, the main issues (focus areas) were identified, namely, noise, visual pollution, and privacy concerns, followed by access and equity, economic aspect, emissions, public safety, and impact on wildlife. In the next step, for each identified focus area, performance indicators were defined along with the several cross-cutting areas for a geographical, temporal, demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral resolution. The proposed performance framework could enable more efficient mitigation measures and possibly contribute to wider adoption of the UAM operations.

A significant increase in air traffic certainly has positive, but also negative effects on society and the environment. In order to overcome the negative impacts a number of different technological, operational and economic measures are undertaken. One of the economic measures is the introduction of emission charges at airports. This type of charges is supported by organizations of importance for the civil aviation and with appropriate international regulations. The paper shows the characteristics of the airport emission charges and describes introduction and implementation of this charges. Also, some examples are shown of emission charges implementation at specific airports, as well as the resulting effects.