Maintenance and Crew Considerations in Fleet Assignment

TLDR

The fleet assignment problem determines which aircraft type should fly each flight segment in a given schedule and is typically formulated as a large‑scale integer program, as studied by Hane et al. The study aims to extend the fleet assignment model to incorporate maintenance and crew considerations while preserving solvability, with the overall objective of maximizing revenue minus operating costs. The authors model a daily domestic fleet assignment with up to eleven fleets and 2,500 flight legs, adding maintenance and crew constraints that maintain solvability. The model successfully solves a daily domestic fleet assignment with up to eleven fleets and 2,500 flight legs. Reference: Hane et al., 1995, Math.

Abstract

Given a flight schedule, which is a set of flight segments with specified departure and arrival times, and a set of aircraft, the fleet assignment problem is to determine which aircraft type should fly each flight segment. The objective is to maximize revenue minus operating costs. In the basic fleet assignment problem considered by Hane et al. (Hane, C. A., C. Barnhart, E. L. Johnson, R. E. Marsten, G. L. Nemhauser, G. Sigismondi. 1995. The fleet assignment problem: Solving a large-scale integer program. Math. Programming 70 211–232.) a daily, domestic fleet assignment problem is modeled and solved with up to eleven fleets and 2,500 flight legs. This paper provides modeling devices for including maintenance and crew considerations into the basic model while retaining its solvability.