IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ortrsc/v43y2009i1p2-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integrated Airline Fleet and Crew Robust Planning

Author

Listed:
  • Chunhua Gao

    (Sabre Holdings, Southlake, Texas 76092)

  • Ellis Johnson

    (H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332)

  • Barry Smith

    (H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332)

Abstract

The airline fleet assignment problem involves assigning aircraft to flights to maximize profit. Different fleet assignment solutions cause dramatically different performance in subsequent crew-planning and operational processes. We have developed an integrated fleet and crew robust planning method to provide fleet assignment solutions that are both friendly to crew planning and robust to real-time operations. The three challenges of this work are (1) to understand the influence of fleet assignment on crew scheduling; (2) to address crew scheduling in a tractable way in the integrated model; and (3) to achieve robustness. We address these challenges by developing a new approach that integrates crew connections within the fleet assignment model and imposes station purity by limiting the number of fleet types and crew bases allowed to serve each airport. Computational results demonstrate that the proposed approach can reduce crew-planning cost, improve robustness, and solve industrial-size problems with good computational efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Chunhua Gao & Ellis Johnson & Barry Smith, 2009. "Integrated Airline Fleet and Crew Robust Planning," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(1), pages 2-16, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:43:y:2009:i:1:p:2-16
    DOI: 10.1287/trsc.1080.0257
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/trsc.1080.0257
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/trsc.1080.0257?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ram Gopalan & Kalyan T. Talluri, 1998. "The Aircraft Maintenance Routing Problem," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 260-271, April.
    2. Brian Rexing & Cynthia Barnhart & Tim Kniker & Ahmad Jarrah & Nirup Krishnamurthy, 2000. "Airline Fleet Assignment with Time Windows," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(1), pages 1-20, February.
    3. Chu, Hai D. & Gelman, Eric & Johnson, Ellis L., 1997. "Solving large scale crew scheduling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 260-268, March.
    4. 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.
    5. Kalyan T. Talluri, 1998. "The Four-Day Aircraft Maintenance Routing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(1), pages 43-53, February.
    6. Andrew J. Schaefer & Ellis L. Johnson & Anton J. Kleywegt & George L. Nemhauser, 2005. "Airline Crew Scheduling Under Uncertainty," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(3), pages 340-348, August.
    7. E. Rod Butchers & Paul R. Day & Andrew P. Goldie & Stephen Miller & Jeff A. Meyer & David M. Ryan & Amanda C. Scott & Chris A. Wallace, 2001. "Optimized Crew Scheduling at Air New Zealand," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 30-56, February.
    8. Lloyd Clarke & Ellis Johnson & George Nemhauser & Zhongxi Zhu, 1997. "The aircraft rotation problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 69(0), pages 33-46, January.
    9. 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.
    10. Jeph Abara, 1989. "Applying Integer Linear Programming to the Fleet Assignment Problem," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 20-28, August.
    11. Pamela H. Vance & Cynthia Barnhart & Ellis L. Johnson & George L. Nemhauser, 1997. "Airline Crew Scheduling: A New Formulation and Decomposition Algorithm," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 45(2), pages 188-200, April.
    12. Barry C. Smith & Ellis L. Johnson, 2006. "Robust Airline Fleet Assignment: Imposing Station Purity Using Station Decomposition," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(4), pages 497-516, November.
    13. Ioachim, Irina & Desrosiers, Jacques & Soumis, Francois & Belanger, Nicolas, 1999. "Fleet assignment and routing with schedule synchronization constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 75-90, November.
    14. L. W. Clarke & C. A. Hane & E. L. Johnson & G. L. Nemhauser, 1996. "Maintenance and Crew Considerations in Fleet Assignment," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 249-260, August.
    15. Cynthia Barnhart & Natashia L. Boland & Lloyd W. Clarke & Ellis L. Johnson & George L. Nemhauser & Rajesh G. Shenoi, 1998. "Flight String Models for Aircraft Fleeting and Routing," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(3), pages 208-220, August.
    16. Cynthia Barnhart & Peter Belobaba & Amedeo R. Odoni, 2003. "Applications of Operations Research in the Air Transport Industry," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(4), pages 368-391, November.
    17. Shan Lan & John-Paul Clarke & Cynthia Barnhart, 2006. "Planning for Robust Airline Operations: Optimizing Aircraft Routings and Flight Departure Times to Minimize Passenger Disruptions," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(1), pages 15-28, February.
    18. Cynthia Barnhart & Amy Cohn, 2004. "Airline Schedule Planning: Accomplishments and Opportunities," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 3-22, November.
    19. Ira Gershkoff, 1989. "Optimizing Flight Crew Schedules," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 29-43, August.
    20. Manoj Lohatepanont & Cynthia Barnhart, 2004. "Airline Schedule Planning: Integrated Models and Algorithms for Schedule Design and Fleet Assignment," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(1), pages 19-32, February.
    21. Rivi Sandhu & Diego Klabjan, 2007. "Integrated Airline Fleeting and Crew-Pairing Decisions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 439-456, June.
    22. 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.
    23. Karla L. Hoffman & Manfred Padberg, 1993. "Solving Airline Crew Scheduling Problems by Branch-and-Cut," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(6), pages 657-682, June.
    24. Diego Klabjan & Ellis L. Johnson & George L. Nemhauser & Eric Gelman & Srini Ramaswamy, 2002. "Airline Crew Scheduling with Time Windows and Plane-Count Constraints," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 337-348, August.
    25. Jay M. Rosenberger & Ellis L. Johnson & George L. Nemhauser, 2004. "A Robust Fleet-Assignment Model with Hub Isolation and Short Cycles," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 357-368, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Okan Örsan Özener & Melda Örmeci Matoğlu & Güneş Erdoğan & Mohamed Haouari & Hasan Sözer, 2017. "Solving a large-scale integrated fleet assignment and crew pairing problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 253(1), pages 477-500, June.
    2. Cynthia Barnhart & Peter Belobaba & Amedeo R. Odoni, 2003. "Applications of Operations Research in the Air Transport Industry," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(4), pages 368-391, November.
    3. Parmentier, Axel & Meunier, Frédéric, 2020. "Aircraft routing and crew pairing: Updated algorithms at Air France," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Hanif D. Sherali & Ki-Hwan Bae & Mohamed Haouari, 2013. "An Integrated Approach for Airline Flight Selection and Timing, Fleet Assignment, and Aircraft Routing," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(4), pages 455-476, November.
    5. Mohamed Haouari & Farah Zeghal Mansour & Hanif D. Sherali, 2019. "A New Compact Formulation for the Daily Crew Pairing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 811-828, May.
    6. F M Zeghal & M Haouari & H D Sherali & N Aissaoui, 2011. "Flexible aircraft fleeting and routing at TunisAir," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(2), pages 368-380, February.
    7. Haouari, Mohamed & Aissaoui, Najla & Mansour, Farah Zeghal, 2009. "Network flow-based approaches for integrated aircraft fleeting and routing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 193(2), pages 591-599, March.
    8. Oliver Faust & Jochen Gönsch & Robert Klein, 2017. "Demand-Oriented Integrated Scheduling for Point-to-Point Airlines," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(1), pages 196-213, February.
    9. Liang, Zhe & Feng, Yuan & Zhang, Xiaoning & Wu, Tao & Chaovalitwongse, Wanpracha Art, 2015. "Robust weekly aircraft maintenance routing problem and the extension to the tail assignment problem," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 238-259.
    10. Zhe Liang & Wanpracha Art Chaovalitwongse, 2013. "A Network-Based Model for the Integrated Weekly Aircraft Maintenance Routing and Fleet Assignment Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(4), pages 493-507, November.
    11. Michelle Dunbar & Gary Froyland & Cheng-Lung Wu, 2012. "Robust Airline Schedule Planning: Minimizing Propagated Delay in an Integrated Routing and Crewing Framework," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 204-216, May.
    12. Xu, Yifan & Wandelt, Sebastian & Sun, Xiaoqian, 2021. "Airline integrated robust scheduling with a variable neighborhood search based heuristic," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 181-203.
    13. Cynthia Barnhart & Amy Cohn, 2004. "Airline Schedule Planning: Accomplishments and Opportunities," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 3-22, November.
    14. Başdere, Mehmet & Bilge, Ümit, 2014. "Operational aircraft maintenance routing problem with remaining time consideration," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 235(1), pages 315-328.
    15. Sherali, Hanif D. & Bish, Ebru K. & Zhu, Xiaomei, 2006. "Airline fleet assignment concepts, models, and algorithms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 172(1), pages 1-30, July.
    16. Sarac, Abdulkadir & Batta, Rajan & Rump, Christopher M., 2006. "A branch-and-price approach for operational aircraft maintenance routing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 175(3), pages 1850-1869, December.
    17. Atoosa Kasirzadeh & Mohammed Saddoune & François Soumis, 2017. "Airline crew scheduling: models, algorithms, and data sets," EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 6(2), pages 111-137, June.
    18. Hanif D. Sherali & Ki-Hwan Bae & Mohamed Haouari, 2010. "Integrated Airline Schedule Design and Fleet Assignment: Polyhedral Analysis and Benders' Decomposition Approach," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 500-513, November.
    19. Mohamed Haouari & Shengzhi Shao & Hanif D. Sherali, 2013. "A Lifted Compact Formulation for the Daily Aircraft Maintenance Routing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(4), pages 508-525, November.
    20. 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.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:43:y:2009:i:1:p:2-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.