Application of the Holt–Winters Model in the Forecasting of Passenger Traffic at Szczecin–Goleniów Airport (Poland)

Natalia Drop () and Adriana Bohdan
Additional contact information
Natalia Drop: Department of Economics and Transport Engineering, Maritime University of Szczecin, 70-500 Szczecin, Poland
Adriana Bohdan: Department of Economics and Transport Engineering, Maritime University of Szczecin, 70-500 Szczecin, Poland

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 14, 1-21

Abstract: Accurate short-term passenger forecasts help regional airports align capacity with demand and plan investments effectively. Drawing on quarterly traffic data for 2010–2024 supplied by the Polish Civil Aviation Authority, this study employs Holt–Winters exponential smoothing to predict passenger volumes at Szczecin–Goleniów Airport for 2025. Additive and multiplicative formulations were parameterized with Excel Solver, using the mean absolute percentage error to identify the better-fitting model. The additive version captured both the steady post-pandemic recovery and pronounced seasonal peaks, indicating that passenger throughput is likely to rise modestly year on year, with the highest loads expected in the summer quarter and the lowest in early spring. These findings suggest the airport should anticipate continued growth and consider adjustments to terminal capacity, apron allocation, and staffing schedules to maintain service quality. Because the Holt–Winters method extrapolates historical patterns and does not incorporate external shocks—such as economic downturns, policy changes, or public health crises—its projections are most reliable over the short horizon examined and should be complemented by scenario-based analyses in future work. This study contributes to sustainable airport management by providing a reproducible, data-driven forecasting framework that can optimize resource allocation with minimal environmental impact.

Keywords: air transport; traffic simulation; sustainable mobility; sustainability; management; transport; airport management; passenger traffic; sustainable airport operations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/14/6407/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/14/6407/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:14:p:6407-:d:1700629

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().