The actual aircraft transportation cost was much higher than the model predicted for a small deployment. Why?
COST calculates cost of aircraft transportation by multiplying cost per passenger per mile times an aircraft utilization rate. A potential problem for small deployments is the utilization rate. COST works best on larger deployments where most aircraft are full or nearly full to capacity. When only a small portion of the capacity is used, COST may underestimate, unless the utilization rates are adjusted. Here is an example of how to get a better estimate: Given: Cargo Capacity of C-5 is 270,000lbs Cargo Load of 1 SF Co = 26,000lbs Then: Cargo Utilization Rate = 0.0962963 or 9.6%. One-way transportation reduces this to about 5% Cargo utilization. Passenger capacity for a C-5 is 75 and the full strength SF CO has 82 personnel. Given that some personnel will remain behind, the passenger utilization rate is 100%. One-way transportation reduces this to 50% passenger utilization.
