Abstract
Operations research models are widely used in the airline industry. By using sophisticated optimization models and algorithms many airlines are able to improve profitability. In this paper we review these models and the underlying solution methodologies. We focus on models involving strategic business processes as well as operational processes. The former models include schedule design and fleeting, aircraft routing, and crew scheduling, while the latter models cope with irregular operations.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abara, J. (1989). Applying integer linear programming to the fleet assignment problem. Interfaces, 19:20–38.
Achour, H., Gamache, M., and Soumis, F. (2003). Branch and cut at the subproblem level in a column generation approach: Application to the airline industry. Les Cahiers du GERAD G-2003-34, HEC, Montréal, Canada.
Ageeva, Y. (2000). Aproaches to Incorporating Robustness Into Airline Scheduling. Master’s Dthesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Anbil, R., Barnhart, C., Johnson, E., and Hatay, L. (1994). A column generation technique for the long-haul crew assignment problem. In: Optimization in Industry II, pp. 7–24. John Wiley & Sons.
Anbil, R., Forrest, J., and Pulleyblank, W. (1998). Column generation and the airline crew pairing problem. In: Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians Berlin, Extra Volume ICM 1998 of Documenta Mathematica. Journal der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung, pp. 677–686, Universität Bielefeld, Fakultät für Mathematik, Bielefeld.
Antes, J. (1997). Structuring the process of airline scheduling. In: Operations Research Proceedings (P. Kischka, ed.), 1997.
Argüello, M., Bard, J., and Yu, G. (1997a). A GRASP for aircraft routing in response to groundings and delays. Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, 5:211–228.
Argüello, M., Bard, J., and Yu, G. (1997b). Models and methods for managing airline irregular operations aircraft routing. In: Operations Research in the Airline Industry (G. Yu, ed.), pp. 1–45, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Bard, J., Yu, G., and Argüello, M. (2001). Optimizing aircraft routings in response to groundings and delays. IIE Transactions, 33:931–947.
Barnhart, C., Johnson, E., Nemhauser, G., and Vance, P. (1996). Exceptions crew scheduling. Technical Report, The Logistics Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Barnhart, C., Johnson, E., Nemhauser, G., Savelsbergh, M., and Vance, P. (1998a). Branch-and-price: Column generation for solving huge integer programs. Operations Research, 46:316–329.
Barnhart, C., Boland, N., Clarke, L., Johnson, E., Nehmauser, G., and Shenoi, R. (1998b). Flight string model for aircraft fleeting and routing. Transportation Science, 32:208–220.
Barnhart, C., Lu, F., and Shenoi, R. (1998c). Integrated airline schedule planning. In: Operations Research in the Airline Industry (G. Yu, ed.), pp. 384–403, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Barnhart, C., Farahat, A., and Lohatepanont, M. (2002a). Airline fleet assignment: An enhanced revenue model. Technical Report, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Barnhart, C., Kniker, T., and Lohatepanont, M. (2002b). Itinerary-based airline fleet assignment. Transportation Science, 36:199–217.
Barnhart, C., Cohn, A., Johnson, E., Klabjan, D., Nemhauser, G., and Vance, P. (2003). Airline crew scheduling. In: Handbook of Transportation Science (R. W. Hall, ed.), Kluwer Scientific Publishers.
Bélanger, N., Desaulniers, G., Soumis, F., and Desrosiers, J. (2003). Periodic airline fleet assignment with time windows, spacing constraints, and time dependant revenues. Forthcoming in: European Journal of Operational Research.
Benders, J. (1962). Partitioning procedures for solving mixed-variables programming problems. Numerische Mathematik, 4:238–252.
Berdy, P. (2002). Developing effective route networks. In: Handbook of Airline Economics (D. Jenkins, ed.), McGraw-Hill.
Berge, M. (1994). Timetable optimization—Formulation, solution approaches, and computational issues. In: AGIFORS proceedings.
Berge, M. and Hopperstad, C. (1993). Demand driven dispatch: A method for dynamic aircraft capacity assignment, models and algorithms. Operations Research, 41:153–168.
Campbell, K., Durfee, R., and Hines, G. (1997). FedEx generates bid lines using simulated annealing. Interfaces, 27:1–16.
Cao, J. and Kanafani, A. (1997a). Real-time decision support for integration of airline flight cancellations and delays part I: Mathematical formulations. Transportation Planning and Technology, 20:183–199.
Cao, J. and Kanafani, A. (1997b). Real-time decision support for integration of airline flight cancellations and delays part II: Algorithms and computational experiments. Transportation Planning and Technology, 20:201–217.
Carmen Systems
Chebalov, S. and Klabjan, D. (2002). Robust airline crew scheduling: Move-up crews. In: Proceedings of the 2002 NSF Design, Service, and Manufacturing Grantees Research Conference.
Clark, P. (2000). Dynamic fleet management. In: Handbook of Airline Operations (G. Butler and M. Keller, eds.), pp. 273–285, McGraw-Hill.
Clarke, L., Hane, C., Johnson, E., and Nemhauser, G. (1996). Maintenance and crew considerations in fleet assignment. Transportation Science, 30:249–260.
Clarke, L., Johnson, E., Nemhauser, G., and Zhu, Z. (1997). The aircraft rotation problem. In: Annals of OR: Mathematics of Industrial Systems II (R. E. Burkard, T. Ibaraki, and M. Queyranne, eds.), pp. 33–46, Baltzer Science Publishers.
Clarke, M. D., Lettovský, L., and Smith, B. (2002). The development of the airline operations control center. In: Handbook of Airline Economics (D. Jenkins, ed.), pp. 197–215, McGraw-Hill.
Cohn, A. and Barnhart, C. (2002). Improving crew scheduling by incorporating key maintenance routing decisions. Operations Research, 51:387–396.
Cordeau, J., Stojković, G., Soumis, F., and Desrosiers, J. (2001). Benders decomposition for simultaneous aircraft routing and crew scheduling. Transportation Science, 35:375–388.
Daskin, M. and Panayoyopoulos, N. (1989). A Langrangian relaxation approach to assigning aircraft to routes in hub and spoke networks. Transportation Science, 23:91–99.
Day, P. and Ryan, D. (1997). Flight attendant rostering for short-haul airline operations. Operations Research, 45:649–661.
Desaulniers, G., Desrosiers, J., Dumas, Y., Marc, S., Rioux, B., Solomon, M., and Soumis, F. (1997a). Crew pairing at Air France. European Journal of Operational Research, 97:245–259.
Desaulniers, G., Desrosiers, J., Dumas, Y., Solomon, M. M., and Soumis, F. (1997b). Daily aircraft routing and scheduling. Management Science, 43:841–855.
Desaulniers, G., Desrosiers, J., Ioachim, I., Solomon, M., and Soumis, F. (1998). A unified framework for deterministic time constrained vehicle routing and crew scheduling problems. In: Fleet Management and Logistics (T. Crainic and G. Laporte, eds.), pp. 57–93, Kluwer Publishing Company.
Desaulniers, G., Desrosiers, J., Lasry, A., and Solomon, M. (1999). Crew pairing for a regional carrier. In: Computer-Aided Transit Scheduling: Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems (N. Wilson, ed.), pp. 19–41. Springer Verlag.
Desrochers, M. and Soumis, F. (1989). A column generation approach to the urban transit crew scheduling problem. Transportation Science, 23:1–13.
Desrosiers, J., Dumas, Y., Solomon, M., and Soumis, F. (1995). Time constrained routing and scheduling. In: Handbook in Operations Research and Management Science, Network Routing (M. Ball, T. Magnanti, C. Monma, and G. Nemhauser, eds.), pp. 35–139, Elsevier Science Publishers.
Ehrgott, M. and Ryan, D. (2001). Bicriteria robustness versus cost optimization in tour of duty planning at Air New Zealand. Technical Report, University of Auckland.
Erdmann, A., Nolte, A., Noltemeier, A., and Schrader, R. (2001). Modeling and solving the airline schedule generation problem. Annals of Operations Research, 107:117–142.
Etschmaier, M. and Mathaisel, D. (1985). Airline scheduling: An overview. Transportation Science, 19:127–138.
Feo, T. and Bard, J. (1989). Flight scheduling and maintenance base planning. Management Science, 35:1415–1432.
Fisher, M. (1981). The Lagrangian relaxation method for solving integer programming problems. Management Science, 27:1–18.
Fisher, M. (1985). An applications oriented guide to Lagrangian relaxation. Interfaces, 15:10–21.
Galia, R. and Hjorring, C. (2003). Modeling of complex costs and rules in a crew pairing column generator. Technical Report CRTR-0304, Carmen Systems.
Gamache, M. and Soumis, F. (1998). A method for optimally solving the rostering problem. In: Operations Research in the Airline Industry (G. Yu, ed.), pp. 124–157. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Gamache, M., Soumis, F., Villeneuve, D., Desrosiers, J., and Gelinas, E. (1998). The preferential bidding system at Air Canada. Transportation Science, 32:246–255.
Gamache, M., Soumis, F., Marquis, G., and Desrosiers, J. (1999). A column generation approach for large scale aircrew rostering problems. Operations Research, 47:247–262.
Garvin, M. (2000). Service delivery system: A regional airline perspective. In: Handbook of Airline Operations (G. Butler and M. Keller, eds.), pp. 419–428, McGraw-Hill.
Geoffrion, A. (1974). Lagrangean relaxation for integer programming. Mathematical Programming Study, 2:82–114.
Gopalan, R. and Talluri, K. (1998). The aircraft maintenance routing problem. Operations Research, 46:260–271.
Hane, C., Barnhart, C., Johnson, E., Marsten, R., Nemhauser, G., and Sigismondi, G. (1995). The fleet assignment problem: Solving a largescale integer program. Mathematical Programming, 70:211–232.
Jacobs, T., Johnson, E., and Smith, B. (1999). O& D FAM: Incorporating passenger flows into the fleeting process. In: Thirty-Ninth Annual AGIFORS Symposium (R. Darrow, ed.), New Orleans.
Jarrah, A. and Diamond, J. (1997). The problem of generating crew bidlines. Interfaces, 27:49–64.
Jarrah, A., Yu, G., Krishnamurthy, N., and Rakshit, A. (1993). A decision support framework for airline flight cancellations and delays. Transportation Science, 27:266–280.
Kang, L. and Clarke, J. (2003). Degradable airline scheduling. Technical Report, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Karow, M. (2003). Virtual Hubs: An Airline Schedule Recovery Concept And Model. Master’s thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kharraziha, H., Ozana, M., and Spjuth, S. (2003). Large scale crew rostering. Technical Report CRTR-0305, Carmen Systems.
Klabjan, D., Johnson, E., Nemhauser, G., Gelman, E., and Ramaswamy, S. (2001a). Airline crew scheduling with regularity. Transportation Science, 35:359–374.
Klabjan, D., Johnson, E., Nemhauser, G., Gelman, E., and Ramaswamy, S. (2001b). Solving large airline crew scheduling problems: Random pairing generation and strong branching. Computational Optimization and Applications, 20:73–91.
Klabjan, D., Johnson, E., Nemhauser, G., Gelman, E., and Ramaswamy, S. (2002). Airline crew scheduling with time windows and plane count constraints. Transportation Science, 36:337–348.
Kniker, T. (1998). Itinerary-based airline fleet assignment. Ph.D Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kohl, N. and Karisch, S. (2004). Airline crew rostering: Problem types, modeling, and optimization. Annals of Operations Research, 127:223–257.
Kwok, L. and Wu, L. (1996). Development of an expert system in cabin crew pattern generation. International Journal of Expert Systems, 9:445–464.
Lavoie, S., Minoux, M., and Odier, E. (1988). A new approach for crew pairing problems by column generation with an application to air transportation. European Journal of Operational Research, 35:45–58.
Lettovský, L. (1997). Airline operations recovery: An optimization approach. Ph.D Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Lettovský, L., Johnson, E., and Smith, B. (1999). Schedule generation model. In: Thirty-Ninth Annual AGIFORS Symposium (R. Darrow, ed.), New Orleans.
Lettovský, L., Johnson, E., and Nemhauser, G. (2000). Airline crew recovery. Transportation Science, 34:337–348.
Listes, O. and Dekker, R. (2003). A scenario aggregation based approach for determining a robust airline fleet composition. Technical Report EI 2002-17, Rotterdam School of Economics.
Lohatepanont, M. and Barnhart, C. (2002). Airline schedule planning: Integrated models and algorithms for schedule design and fleet assignment. Technical Report, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Løve, M., Sørensen, K., Larsen, J., and Clausen, J. (2002). Disruption management for an airline-rescheduling of aircraft. In: Applications of Evolutionary Computing: Evo Workshops 2002 (S. Cagnoni, J. Gottlieb, E. Hart, M. Middendorf, and G. Raidl, eds.), volume 2279, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 315–324, Springer-Verlag Heidelberg.
Lučić, P. and Teodorović, D. (1999). Simulated annealing for the multi-objective aircrew rostering problem. Transportation Research Part A, 33:19–45.
Makri, A. and Klabjan, D. (2004). A new pricing scheme for airline crew scheduling. INFORMS Journal on Computing, 16:56–67.
Marsten, R. (1994). Crew planning at Delta Airlines. Presentation in: XV Mathematical Programming Symposium, Ann Arbor.
Marsten, R., Subramanian, R., and Gibbons, L. (1996). Junior analyst extraordinare (JANE): Route development at Delta Air Lines. In: AGIFORS Proceedings.
Martin, R. (1999). Large Scale Linear and Integer Optimization: A Unified Approach, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Mercier, A., Cordeau, J.-F., and Soumis, F. (2003). A computational study of Benders decomposition for the integrated aircraft routing and crew scheduling problem. Les Cahiers du GERAD G-2003-48, HEC, Montréal, Canada.
Minoux, M. (1984). Column generation techniques in combinatorial optimization: A new application to crew pairing problems. In: Proceedings XXIVth AGIFORS Symposium.
Minoux, M. (1986). Mathematical Programming: Theory and Algorithms, Wiley-Interscience.
Paoletti, B., Cappelletti, S., and Lenner, C. (2000). Operations research models for the optimization of aircraft rotation and routing in the integrated resources management process. In: Handbook of Airline Operations (G. Butler and M. Keller, eds.), pp. 285–308, McGraw-Hill.
Rexing, B., Barnhart, C., Kniker, T., Jarrah, A., and Krishnamurthy, N. (2000). Airline fleet assignment with time windows. Transportation Science, 34:1–20.
Rosenberger, J., Johnson, E., and Nemhauser, G. (2001). Rerouting aircraft for airline recovery. Transportation Science, 37:408–421.
Rosenberger, J., Johnson, E., and Nemhauser, G. (2004). A robust fleet assignment model with hub isolation and short cycles. Transportation Science, 38:357–368.
Rushmeier, R. and Kontogiorgis, S. (1997). Advances in the optimization of airline fleet assignment. Transportation Science, 31:159–169.
Ryan, D. and Foster, B. (1981). An integer programming approach to scheduling. In: Computer Scheduling of Public Transport Urban Passenger Vehicle and Crew Scheduling (A. Wren, ed.), pp. 269–280, Elsevier Science B.V.
Schaefer, A., Johnson, E., Kleywegt, A., and Nemhauser, G. (2000). Airline crew scheduling under uncertainty. Technical Report TLI-01-01, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Sohoni, M. and Johnson, E. (2002a). Operational airline reserve crew planning. Technical Report, The Logistics Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Sohoni, M. and Johnson, E. (2002b). An optimization approach to pilot recurrent training schedule. Technical Report, The Logistics Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Sohoni, M., Johnson, E., and Bailey, G. (2003). Long range reserve crew manpower planning. Technical Report, The Logistics Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Song, M., Wei, G., and Yu, G. (1998). A decision support framework for crew management during airline irregular operations. In: Operations Research in the Airline Industry (G. Yu, ed.), pp. 260–286, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Sriram, C. and Haghani, A. (2003). An optimization model for aircraft maintenance scheduling and re-assignment. Transportation Research Part A, 37:29–48.
Stojković, G., Soumis, M., and Desrosiers, J. (1998). The operational airline crew scheduling problem. Transportation Science, 32:232–245.
Stojković, M. and Soumis, F. (2001). An optimization model for the simultaneous operational flight and pilot scheduling problem. Management Science, 47: 1290–1305.
Stojković, M. and Soumis, F. (2003). The operational flight and multicrew scheduling problem. Les Cahiers du GERAD G-2000-27, HEC, Montréal, Canada.
Talluri, K. (1996). Swapping applications in a daily airline fleet assignment. Transportation Science, 30: pp. 237–248.
Teodorović, D. and Stojković, G. (1990). Model for operational daily airline scheduling. Transportation Planning Technology, 14:273–285.
The Airline Group of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (AGIFORS). http://www.agifors.org.
Thengvall, B., Bard, J., and Yu, G. (2000). Balancing user preferences for aircraft schedule recovery during irregular operations. IIE Transactions, 32:181–193.
Thengvall, B., Bard, J., and Yu, G. (2003). A bundle algorithm approach for the aircraft schedule recovery problem during hub closures. Transportation Science, 37:392–407.
van Ryzin, G. and Talluri, K. (2002). Revenue management. In: Handbook of Transportation Science (R. Hall, ed.), pp. 599–661, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Vance, P., Atamtürk, A., Barnhart, C., Gelman, E., Johnson, E., Krishna, A., Mahidhara, D., Nemhauser, G., and Rebello, R. (1997). A heuristic branch-and-price approach for the airline crew pairing problem. Technical Report LEC-97-06, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Wei, G. and Yu, G. (1997). Optimization model and algorithm for crew management during airline irregular operations. Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, 1:305–321.
Yan, S. and Lin, C. (1997). Airline scheduling for the temporary closure of airports. Transportation Science, 31:72–82.
Yan, S. and Tseng, C. (2002). A passenger demand model for airline flight scheduling and fleet routing. Computers and Operations Research, 29:1559–1581.
Yan, S. and Wang, C. (2001). The planning of aircraft routes and flight frequencies in an airline network operations. Journal of Advanced Transportation, 35:33–46.
Yan, S. and Young, H. (1996). A decision support framework for multi-fleet routing and multi-stop flight scheduling. Transportation Research Part A, 30:379–398.
Yen, J. and Birge, J. (2000). A stochastic programming approach to the airline crew scheduling problem. Technical Report, University of Washington.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Klabjan, D. (2005). Large-Scale Models in the Airline Industry. In: Desaulniers, G., Desrosiers, J., Solomon, M.M. (eds) Column Generation. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-25486-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-25486-2_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-25485-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-25486-9
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)