Investigating the impact of visibility on flight operations at Entebbe International Airport

Abstract

Low visibility conditions create numerous operational and safety hazards in air transport. The general objective of this study was to examine the impact of visibility on flight delays at EIA. To achieve this, the research was guided by three specific objectives and data was collected basing on these objectives. The study used secondary data for a period of 10 years from 2007 to 2016. The trend, graphical and correlation analysis techniques were used with the help of Excel and MATLAB software packages. The significance of the computed correlation was established using the t-test at 95% confidence level. Findings indicated that there is a statistically significant impact of visibility on flight delays at EIA. It was noted that among all the weather phenomena that reduce visibility at EIA, fog reduces visibility to the largest extent compared to other weather phenomena. The study also noted that good visibility conditions are experienced in the wet seasons MAM and SON and it deteriorates in dry months December, January, July and August. The study recommended that research should be carried out to establish the effectiveness of the Instrument Landing System used during low visibility conditions in reducing flight delays. It also recommended that flight schedulers should pay attention to the time of the day in which flights are scheduled especially in those months associated with poor visibility condition