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A Novel Model and Decomposition Approach for the Integrated Airline Fleet Assignment, Aircraft Routing, and Crew Pairing Problem

Author

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  • Shengzhi Shao

    (Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061)

  • Hanif D. Sherali

    (Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061)

  • Mohamed Haouari

    (Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar)

Abstract

Given a daily flight schedule and a set of aircraft fleets, the airline scheduling problem assigns individual aircraft and groups of crew to each flight based on specific considerations of aircraft maintenance requirements and crew work rules, respectively. Traditionally, this problem has been sequentially broken down into several stages, where the fleet assignment problem, which is solved first, partitions the entire flight network into subnetworks according to fleet types, followed by respectively solving the aircraft routing and crew pairing problems to generate suitable aircraft and crew rotations. However, this sequential approach ignores the interdependencies among the stages, leading to suboptimal, or even infeasible, solutions. In this paper, we propose an integrated model and solution approach that incorporates the fleet assignment (with itinerary-based demands), aircraft routing, and crew pairing problems within a single framework. We solve the resulting formulation of the problem by using a Benders decomposition approach, along with several acceleration strategies. Computational results obtained by using real-life data from a major U.S. airline demonstrate the benefits of the integrated approach.

Suggested Citation

  • Shengzhi Shao & Hanif D. Sherali & Mohamed Haouari, 2017. "A Novel Model and Decomposition Approach for the Integrated Airline Fleet Assignment, Aircraft Routing, and Crew Pairing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(1), pages 233-249, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:51:y:2017:i:1:p:233-249
    DOI: 10.1287/trsc.2015.0623
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Ding, Chengjin & Chen, Xinyuan & Wu, Weiwei & Wei, Wenbin & Xin, Zelin, 2023. "Game-theoretic analysis of the impact of crew overnight hotel cost on airlines’ fleet assignment and crew pairing," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    3. 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.
    4. Glomb, Lukas & Liers, Frauke & Rösel, Florian, 2022. "A rolling-horizon approach for multi-period optimization," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 300(1), pages 189-206.
    5. Wen, Xin & Ma, Hoi-Lam & Chung, Sai-Ho & Khan, Waqar Ahmed, 2020. "Robust airline crew scheduling with flight flying time variability," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    6. 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.

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