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Flight Crew Scheduling

Author

Listed:
  • Glenn W. Graves

    (University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024)

  • Richard D. McBride

    (School of Business Administration, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1421)

  • Ira Gershkoff

    (United Airlines, 1200 Algonquin Road, Elk Grove Township, IL 60007)

  • Diane Anderson

    (United Airlines, 1200 Algonquin Road, Elk Grove Township, IL 60007)

  • Deepa Mahidhara

    (United Airlines, 1200 Algonquin Road, Elk Grove Township, IL 60007)

Abstract

A new crew scheduling optimization system has been developed for United Airlines. The system was developed to permit quick response to schedule changes and to reduce crew scheduling costs. It was designed to work efficiently for both the medium sized problems (300 flights daily) and the very large problems (1,700 flights daily) that United must solve. The system has two main components, a generator and an optimizer. The generator creates pairings (candidate crew trips) which are fed as variables to the optimizer as an elastic embedded set partitioning integer programming problem. The optimizer then seeks to find a set of pairings that covers all of the flight segments exactly once with minimal cost. Once a disjoint solution has been found, the system cycles between the generator and the optimizer to improve it. Savings of $16,000,000 annually in crew scheduling costs have been obtained.

Suggested Citation

  • Glenn W. Graves & Richard D. McBride & Ira Gershkoff & Diane Anderson & Deepa Mahidhara, 1993. "Flight Crew Scheduling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(6), pages 736-745, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:39:y:1993:i:6:p:736-745
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.39.6.736
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    Citations

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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. Bitzan, John & Peoples, James, 2014. "U.S. air carriers and work-rule constraints – Do airlines employ an allocatively efficient mix of inputs?," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 9-17.
    3. Desaulniers, G. & Desrosiers, J. & Dumas, Y. & Marc, S. & Rioux, B. & Solomon, M. M. & Soumis, F., 1997. "Crew pairing at Air France," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 245-259, March.
    4. Yılmaz, Seren Bilge & Yücel, Eda, 2021. "Optimizing onboard catering loading locations and plans for airlines," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    5. Wark, Peter & Holt, John & Ronnqvist, Mikael & Ryan, David, 1997. "Aircrew schedule generation using repeated matching," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 21-35, October.
    6. Nissen, Rüdiger & Haase, Knut, 2004. "Duty-period-based network model for airline crew rescheduling," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 581, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    7. Michael J. Brusco & Larry W. Jacobs, 2000. "Optimal Models for Meal-Break and Start-Time Flexibility in Continuous Tour Scheduling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(12), pages 1630-1641, December.
    8. Sriram, Chellappan & Haghani, Ali, 2003. "An optimization model for aircraft maintenance scheduling and re-assignment," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 29-48, January.
    9. Haase, Knut, 1999. "Retail business staff scheduling under complex labor relations," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 511, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    10. 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).
    11. Gang Yu & Michael Argüello & Gao Song & Sandra M. McCowan & Anna White, 2003. "A New Era for Crew Recovery at Continental Airlines," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 33(1), pages 5-22, February.
    12. Ziarati, Koorush & Soumis, Francois & Desrosiers, Jacques & Gelinas, Sylvie & Saintonge, Andre, 1997. "Locomotive assignment with heterogeneous consists at CN North America," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 281-292, March.
    13. Yan, Shangyao & Tu, Yu-Ping, 2002. "A network model for airline cabin crew scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(3), pages 531-540, August.
    14. Peters, Emmanuel & de Matta, Renato & Boe, Warren, 2007. "Short-term work scheduling with job assignment flexibility for a multi-fleet transport system," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 180(1), pages 82-98, July.
    15. Marielle Christiansen, 1999. "Decomposition of a Combined Inventory and Time Constrained Ship Routing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(1), pages 3-16, February.
    16. Joyce W. Yen & John R. Birge, 2006. "A Stochastic Programming Approach to the Airline Crew Scheduling Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(1), pages 3-14, February.
    17. Beasley, J. E. & Cao, B., 1996. "A tree search algorithm for the crew scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 517-526, November.
    18. Jean-François Cordeau & Goran Stojković & François Soumis & Jacques Desrosiers, 2001. "Benders Decomposition for Simultaneous Aircraft Routing and Crew Scheduling," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 375-388, November.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.
    21. Amy Mainville Cohn & Cynthia Barnhart, 2003. "Improving Crew Scheduling by Incorporating Key Maintenance Routing Decisions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 387-396, June.

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