A deterministic model that indicates flexibility of flights at the strategic level (up to 6 months ahead) taking into account changing airspace configurations and capacity is formulated. Flexibility is quantified by means of time windows (TWs). Flights complying with TWs guarantee that they will not impact negatively any other flight. Three variants of the model and three types of TWs are tested on a large-size data instance (the European network for an entire day of traffic). The model output specifies the constrained flights (i.e., with TWs shorter than the maximum size allowed for their definition), the constraining sector-hours and provides a list of saturated sector-hours. The meaning of each of the results is explored, across the three TW model variants, as well as the capability of the model variants to assure that capacity limits will not be exceeded. The criticality index, a measure of the sector-hour saturation, is introduced. This index can be used to identify areas for potential improvements. Sharing the information obtained from the TW model results at a strategic level can help both airlines and air navigation service providers (ANSPs) to improve the network status: airlines can decide to re-route heavily constrained flights (e.g., with one minute wide TWs), whereas ANSPs could decide to re-organise the capacity provision of the saturated airspace portions. The TW model can be re-run with the proposed changes, with the goal to assess the impact on both the individual stakeholders and the network. Thus, the model offers the measure of flight flexibility, and can be used as a tool to assess the impact of changes, helping in decision-making processes of airlines and ANSPs.

制定了一个确定性模型，该模型在战略层面（最多提前 6 个月）表明飞行的灵活性，同时考虑到不断变化的空域配置和容量。灵活性通过时间窗口 (TW) 进行量化。符合 TW 的航班保证不会对任何其他航班产生负面影响。该模型的三种变体和三种类型的 TW 在大型数据实例（欧洲网络一整天的流量）上进行了测试。模型输出指定受限航班（即，TW 短于其定义所允许的最大大小）、受限扇区小时数并提供饱和扇区小时数列表。在三个 TW 模型变体中探索了每个结果的含义，以及模型变体的能力，以确保不会超出容量限制。引入了衡量部门小时饱和度的临界指数。该指数可用于确定潜在改进的领域。在战略层面共享从 TW 模型结果中获得的信息可以帮助航空公司和空中导航服务提供商 (ANSP) 改善网络状态：航空公司可以决定重新安排严重受限的航班（例如，使用一分钟宽的 TW） ，而空中航行服务提供者可以决定重新组织饱和空域部分的容量供应。TW 模型可以使用提议的更改重新运行，目的是评估对各个利益相关者和网络的影响。因此，该模型提供了飞行灵活性的度量，