Robustness through possible crew swaps in airline operations

• Main Authors: Ilagan, Ian Frederic A., Sy, C.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Airlines—Timetables; Flight crews; Industrial Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/1539; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/faculty_research/article/2538/type/native/viewcontent
• Institution: De La Salle University

Delays in airline transportation resulting from poor planning of resources, such as crew, are commonplace. Common practices that deal with disruptions, such as purposeful cancellation of flights or assignment of emergency crew, have several drawbacks. Disruption management in terms of robustness, while increasing planned costs, are capable of creating flight schedules resistant to delays. This paper proposes an approach that incorporates delay propagation costs of flights in planning, and finds swap opportunities for crew assigned to each flight in case of disruptions. The crew swaps should lessen the need to assign emergency crew to specific flights, which is seen as costlier. A scenario is presented comparing the solutions obtained through the traditional crew pairing model and the proposed crew swap model. A solution is obtained with a comparatively higher planned cost, but with significantly lower delays. © 2017 IEEE.