Movement

nounStandard termAviation

A single takeoff or landing operation by an aircraft at an airport.

Air traffic controllers and airport managers use this metric to quantify runway utilization and facility workload. A standard flight arriving and later departing counts as two distinct movements. Tracking this number helps authorities allocate funding, schedule runway maintenance, and determine the need for additional air traffic control staffing.

Heard on the job

We're capping operations at forty movements per hour while the parallel runway is closed for repaving.