Many of the busiest airports around the world experience very high levels of traffic congestion for lengthy periods of time during their daily operations. This is due to a rapid growth in demand for air transport services, combined with physical and political constraints which usually prevent the expansion of airport infrastructure in the short-term. As airport slot coordinators and traffic controllers strive to improve the efficiency of their operations, there is considerable scope for new and innovative mathematical modelling techniques to offer valuable insight.

In this talk we discuss some of the methods used by researchers to model aircraft queues since research into this area first began in earnest about 60 years ago. Aviation in general is an extremely active research area nowadays, and our review will touch upon some of the wider topics that are closely related to aircraft queue modelling, including demand management strategies and the potential of strategic and tactical interventions to improve the utilisation of scarce resources at airports.