Assessment and Analysis of Aircraft Fuel Consumption in a Tropical Environment: The Case Study of the Maya-Maya International Airport, Republic of the Congo

Abstract

Fuel consumption at tropical airports in developing regions remains poorly documented, creating a significant empirical gap in both academic literature and operational guidance. This paper presents a comprehensive assessment and analysis of aircraft fuel consumption at Maya-Maya International Airport (FCBB), Republic of the Congo, using four years of operational data (2021–2024) covering 22,968 flight movements. Fuel consumption is estimated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator (ICEC v13.1), and a distance-based allocation approach is introduced to decompose the total fuel consumption into airborne and ground operation components. A reproducible engineering methodology is developed, combining the ICAO calculator with a parametric ground fuel allocation and log-linear regression analysis. Over the study period, the total fuel consumption reached 183,010 tonnes, generating 578,313 tonnes of CO2. Ground operations account for approximately 7.0% of the total fuel burn (12,780 tonnes). Delay analysis reveals average delays of 19.5 min per flight with a strongly right-skewed distribution — median nine min against a maximum of 521 min — indicating that extreme events disproportionately drive total fuel burn. Regression analysis identifies flight distance, aircraft generation, and operational delays (approximately 15 kg of additional fuel per min of delay) as the primary drivers of fuel consumption. A three-phase strategic framework combining operational improvements, fleet modernization, and integrated decision-support systems projects fuel savings of 15–23% under realistic implementation scenarios. The methodological framework is transparent, replicable, and directly transferable to other data-constrained tropical airports in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.