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. Kangis, Peter & O'Reilly, M. Dolores, 2003. "Strategies in a dynamic marketplace: A case study in the airline industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 105-111, February.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Chengqi Wang & Jeremy Clegg & Mario Kafouros, 2009. "Country-of-Origin Effects of Foreign Direct Investment," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 179-198, April.
    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. Wang, Chengqi & Hong, Junjie & Kafouros, Mario & Boateng, Agyenim, 2012. "What drives outward FDI of Chinese firms? Testing the explanatory power of three theoretical frameworks," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 425-438.
    3. Ho, Mia Hsiao-Wen & Wang, Fatima, 2015. "Unpacking knowledge transfer and learning paradoxes in international strategic alliances: Contextual differences matter," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 287-297.
    4. Buckley, Peter J. & Munjal, Surender & Enderwick, Peter & Forsans, Nicolas, 2016. "Cross-border acquisitions by Indian multinationals: Asset exploitation or asset augmentation?," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 986-996.
    5. 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.
    6. Anna Mazurek-Kusiak & Joanna Hawlena & Agata Kobylka, 2019. "Model of Polish Market of Passenger Air Services in the Conditions of EU Standards," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 417-427.
    7. 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.
    8. Nucciarelli, Alberto & Gastaldi, Massimo, 2009. "Collaboration in the airport business through the development of an IT platform," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 562-573, October.
    9. John Francis O’Connell & David Connolly, 2017. "The strategic evolution of Aer Lingus from a full-service airline to a low-cost carrier and finally positioning itself into a value hybrid airline," Tourism Economics, , vol. 23(6), pages 1296-1320, September.
    10. 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.
    11. Hyo Eun Cho & Jon Jungbien Moon & Insik Jeong, 2022. "Equal ownership split in international joint ventures: performance implications in an emerging market," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(2), pages 205-230, April.
    12. Kunofiwa Tsaurai, 2023. "Foreign Direct Investment-Growth Nexus in BRICS: How Relevant are the Absorption Capacities?," Scientific Annals of Economics and Business (continues Analele Stiintifice), Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 70(1), pages 41-55, March.
    13. Wolbeck, Lena Antonia, 2019. "Fairness aspects in personnel scheduling," Discussion Papers 2019/16, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    14. Barak S. Aharonson & Suleika Bort & Michael Woywode, 2020. "The Influence of Multinational Corporations on International Alliance Formation Behavior of Colocated Start-Ups," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 770-795, May.
    15. Kafouros, Mario & Aliyev, Murod, 2016. "Institutional development and firm profitability in transition economies," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 369-378.
    16. 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).
    17. 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.
    18. Somnath Lahiri & Vikas Kumar, 2012. "Ranking International Business Institutions and Faculty Members Using Research Publication as the Measure," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 317-340, June.
    19. Natalia Vila & Manuel Córcoles, 2011. "Yield Management and Airline Strategic Groups," Tourism Economics, , vol. 17(2), pages 261-278, April.
    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.