Handling rest requirements and preassigned activities in airline crew pairing optimization

Abstract

For the complex task of scheduling airline crews, this paper discusses the integration of rostering requirements into the crew pairing optimization process. Our approach is based on a network flow model which uses a state expanded network to represent pairing chains for crew members at different domiciles. We enhance this model by proposing a refined representation of rest requirements along with preassignments such as pairings from the previous planning period, office and simulator activities as well as vacation and part-time leaves. In particular, we introduce the concept of availability blocks to mitigate the loss of information following from the aggregated anonymous flow of crew members in the network model. Experimental results with real world data sets show that the refined model remains tractable in practical settings. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.