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Air Transat Uses ALTITUDE to Manage Its Aircraft Routing, Crew Pairing, and Work Assignment

Author

Listed:
  • Jacques Desrosiers

    (GERAD and École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal, Montréal, Canada H3T 2A7)

  • Arielle Lasry

    (École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal)

  • Daniel McInnis

    (Ad Opt Technologies, Montréal, 4824 Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges, Suite 202, Montréal, Canada H3V 1G4)

  • Marius M. Solomon

    (College of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, and GERAD)

  • François Soumis

    (GERAD and École Polytechnique de Montréal)

Abstract

Air Transat operates charter flights to vacation spots. In 1993, it had an opportunity to expand, but its manual planning and scheduling system could not support rapid growth. Air Transat acquired the airline operations management system ALTITUDE, a three-module optimization package for aircraft routing, crew pairing, and monthly work assignment. The system helped the airline to streamline planning and scheduling and to focus on its core business and expansion rather than internal operational problems. By reducing the planning cycle, increasing operational flexibility, and supporting marketing, the system helped the company to become the largest charter operator in Canada. ALTITUDE ensures cost-effective solutions by optimizing planning and scheduling problems and allowing easy interfacing among them. It saved the company an estimated eight to 12 percent of total costs during the first year and over a million dollars during the second year in operation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacques Desrosiers & Arielle Lasry & Daniel McInnis & Marius M. Solomon & François Soumis, 2000. "Air Transat Uses ALTITUDE to Manage Its Aircraft Routing, Crew Pairing, and Work Assignment," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 41-53, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:30:y:2000:i:2:p:41-53
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.30.2.41.11673
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Maenhout, Broos & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2010. "A hybrid scatter search heuristic for personalized crew rostering in the airline industry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 206(1), pages 155-167, October.
    2. Jeroen Beliën & Brecht Cardoen & Erik Demeulemeester, 2012. "Improving Workforce Scheduling of Aircraft Line Maintenance at Sabena Technics," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 42(4), pages 352-364, August.
    3. Zeren, Bahadır & Özcan, Ender & Deveci, Muhammet, 2024. "An adaptive greedy heuristic for large scale airline crew pairing problems," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    4. S. Mirrazavi & Henri Beringer, 2007. "A web-based workforce management system for Sainsburys Supermarkets Ltd," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 437-457, November.
    5. Freling, R. & Lentink, R.M. & Wagelmans, A.P.M., 2001. "A decision support system for crew planning in passenger transportation using a flexible branch-and-price algorithm," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2001-57-LIS, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    6. Laure Cabantous & Gilbert Laporte, 2015. "ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: Academia-Industry Interfacing in Operations Research in Montréal," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 45(6), pages 554-566, December.
    7. Ernst, A. T. & Jiang, H. & Krishnamoorthy, M. & Sier, D., 2004. "Staff scheduling and rostering: A review of applications, methods and models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(1), pages 3-27, February.
    8. S Eom & E Kim, 2006. "A survey of decision support system applications (1995–2001)," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(11), pages 1264-1278, November.

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