Perspectives on Modelling Airline Integrated Scheduling Problem: a Review on State-of-the-Art Methodologies
Yifan Xu
Abstract
Operating on volatile profit margins, it is imperative for the airline industry to utilize its capacity and resources via sophisticated schedules for efficient operation. While the airline scheduling problem consisting of schedule design, fleet assignment, aircraft routing, and crew scheduling subproblems were extensively studied and successfully applied in real practice, the recent decade has witnessed a growing interest in integrated scheduling problems that capture the interdependencies between various decisions across different subproblems and airline resources with significantly reduced operation costs. This paper aims to provide insights for modelling the airline integrated scheduling problem, indicating a roadmap for future research in this domain. Multiple perspectives concerning demand-supply interaction, operational consistency, and schedule robustness are first provided. State-of-the-art mathematical formulations and coupling relationships for representative integrated problems are summarized additionally. In the end, we conclude with a series of themes that can be further addressed in the future.