IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/operea/v24y2024i3d10.1007_s12351-024-00861-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Charting the future of pilots: maximizing airline workforce efficiency through advanced analytics

Author

Listed:
  • Burak Cankaya

    (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University)

  • Bulent Erenay

    (Northern Kentucky University)

  • Eyyub Kibis

    (Montclair State University)

  • Aaron Glassman

    (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University)

  • Dursun Delen

    (Oklahoma State University
    Istinye University)

Abstract

Pilots and aircraft are among the most valuable assets of an airline. Buying aircraft and hiring pilots are crucial strategic decisions companies must oversee for sustainability. The cost of buying, selling, leasing, and long production times for aircraft challenge companies in making optimal long-term decisions. Union rules, pilot shortages, pilot surplus, and the cost of employing an excessive number of pilots are factors complicating the workforce planning for airline companies worldwide. Under these volatile and conflicting circumstances, many companies cannot strategically plan for the planning of pilots to aircraft to meet short-term tactical decisions against mid/long-term company strategies. In this study, our objective is to optimize long-term crew planning by minimizing the total crew cost considering captain promotions and new hires, without compromising the pilot experience. A mixed integer programming model is developed to solve the long-term airline crew planning problem. Realistic business scenarios are used to determine the optimal pilot hiring and promotion patterns for both high-and low-demand scenarios. The results show that the proposed optimization method significantly reduces crew costs without compromising the pilot experience in various demand and cost scenarios. The mathematical model, the realistic business scenarios, and the business insights for airlines are deemed novel contributions to the pertinent literature and industry practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Burak Cankaya & Bulent Erenay & Eyyub Kibis & Aaron Glassman & Dursun Delen, 2024. "Charting the future of pilots: maximizing airline workforce efficiency through advanced analytics," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 1-32, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:operea:v:24:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s12351-024-00861-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s12351-024-00861-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12351-024-00861-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12351-024-00861-6?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dijkstra, Matthijs C. & Kroon, Leo G. & van Nunen, Jo A. E. E. & Salomon, Marc, 1991. "A DSS for capacity planning of aircraft maintenance personnel," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-3), pages 69-78, October.
    2. Verbeek, Peter J., 1991. "Decision support systems -- An application in strategic manpower planning of airline pilots," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 368-381, December.
    3. Eyyüb Y. Kıbış & İ. Esra Büyüktahtakın & Robert G. Haight & Najmaddin Akhundov & Kathleen Knight & Charles E. Flower, 2021. "A Multistage Stochastic Programming Approach to the Optimal Surveillance and Control of the Emerald Ash Borer in Cities," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 808-834, May.
    4. Milind G. Sohoni & Ellis L. Johnson & T. Glenn Bailey, 2004. "Long-Range Reserve Crew Manpower Planning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 724-739, June.
    5. Doi, Tsubasa & Nishi, Tatsushi & Voß, Stefan, 2018. "Two-level decomposition-based matheuristic for airline crew rostering problems with fair working time," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(2), pages 428-438.
    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. Wen, Xin & Chung, Sai-Ho & Ji, Ping & Sheu, Jiuh-Biing, 2022. "Individual scheduling approach for multi-class airline cabin crew with manpower requirement heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. Kroon, Leo G. & Salomon, Marc & Van Wassenhove, Luk N., 1995. "Exact and approximation algorithms for the operational fixed interval scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 190-205, April.
    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. Liu, Ming & Wu, Jiani & Zhang, Shuhua & Liang, Jing, 2023. "Cyanobacterial blooms management: A modified optimization model for interdisciplinary research," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 484(C).
    5. Andrew R. Tilman & Robert G. Haight, 2023. "Public policy for management of forest pests within an ownership mosaic," Papers 2312.05403, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    6. Paola Cappanera & Filippo Visintin & Roberta Rossi, 2022. "The emergency department physician rostering problem: obtaining equitable solutions via network optimization," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 916-959, December.
    7. Reményi, Christoph & Staudacher, Stephan, 2014. "Systematic simulation based approach for the identification and implementation of a scheduling rule in the aircraft engine maintenance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(PA), pages 94-107.
    8. Yim, Seho & Hong, Sung-Pil & Park, Myoung-Ju & Chung, Yerim, 2022. "Inverse interval scheduling via reduction on a single machine," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 303(2), pages 541-549.
    9. Peng, Ling & Kloeden, Peter E., 2021. "Time-consistent portfolio optimization," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(1), pages 183-193.
    10. Gang Yu & Julian Pachon & Benjamin Thengvall & Darryal Chandler & Al Wilson, 2004. "Optimizing Pilot Planning and Training for Continental Airlines," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 34(4), pages 253-264, August.
    11. Zeighami, Vahid & Saddoune, Mohammed & Soumis, François, 2020. "Alternating Lagrangian decomposition for integrated airline crew scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(1), pages 211-224.
    12. Seyed Morteza Emadi & Bradley R. Staats, 2020. "A Structural Estimation Approach to Study Agent Attrition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4071-4095, September.
    13. Kovalyov, Mikhail Y. & Ng, C.T. & Cheng, T.C. Edwin, 2007. "Fixed interval scheduling: Models, applications, computational complexity and algorithms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 178(2), pages 331-342, April.
    14. van Kessel, Paul J. & Freeman, Floris C. & Santos, Bruno F., 2023. "Airline maintenance task rescheduling in a disruptive environment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(2), pages 605-621.
    15. Liping Ge & Stefan Voß & Lin Xie, 2022. "Robustness and disturbances in public transport," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 191-261, March.
    16. Marco Ghirardi & Fabio Salassa, 2022. "A simple and effective algorithm for the maximum happy vertices problem," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 30(1), pages 181-193, April.
    17. van Ooijen, Henny & Bertrand, J. Will M. & Buyukkaramikli, Nasuh C., 2019. "Coordinating failed goods collecting and repair capacity policies in the maintenance of commoditized capital goods," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 29-42.
    18. Wolbeck, Lena Antonia, 2019. "Fairness aspects in personnel scheduling," Discussion Papers 2019/16, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    19. Restrepo, María I. & Lozano, Leonardo & Medaglia, Andrés L., 2012. "Constrained network-based column generation for the multi-activity shift scheduling problem," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 466-472.
    20. Jiaxi Wang & Manfred Gronalt & Yan Sun, 2017. "A two-stage approach to the depot shunting driver assignment problem with workload balance considerations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-23, July.

    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:spr:operea:v:24:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s12351-024-00861-6. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.