Scheduling Aircraft Cleaning Crews

In this paper a technique is developed for the scheduling of crews for cleaning aircraft interiors between scheduled flights. The cleaning requirements for each aircraft are given in terms of total man-hours work to be performed. The performance of this work is limited to an interval of time during which the aircraft is on the ground and available for servicing. A labor contract requires that each cleaning crew member must be scheduled for one meal during his work shift. Meals must be taken during cafeteria hours only. The problem is to find the crew size for each shift, and the number of workers assigned to meal and cleaning activities (a crew schedule) such that the total crew cost is minimal. The problem is formulated as a pure integer programming problem. Included in the formulation are constraints designed to avoid certain undesirable phenomenon namely: shift, job, and worker interruptions. A method of decomposing large problems into a series of smaller problems amenable to solution on computers with limited capacity is suggested. The paper includes the solution to a numerical problem derived from a case study involving a medium size international airline.