A decision support framework for multi-fleet routing and multi-stop flight scheduling

Fleet routing and flight scheduling are important in airline carrier operations. Ineffective and inefficient fleet routing and flight scheduling will result in a substantial loss of profits. This research aims at developing a framework to help carriers adjust their draft timetables and fleet routes, when market demand conditions are expected to change in the near future. The framework is based on a basic model, constructed as a multi-fleet time-space network from which several strategic models are developed, to help carriers in fleet routing and flight scheduling. These models are formulated as multiple commodity network flow problems. The Lagrangian relaxation accompanied by the network simplex method, a Lagrangian heuristic and a modified sub-gradient method are suggested to solve the problems. A flow decomposition algorithm is also suggested in order to trace every aircraft route. To show how to apply this framework in the real world, a case study regarding the international operations of a major Taiwan airline was performed. The results show that the framework would be useful for actual operations.