Empirical investigations of properties of robust aircraft routing models

The airline schedule planning process is an important component of airline operations, and it involves considerably complex problems. This research focuses on the aircraft routing phase. We introduce the concept of robustness in aircraft routing problems, and find solutions that can stand uncertainty. We categorize the delays in flight operations into two components – independent delay and propagated delay. In the data driven approach, independent delay can be regarded as constant, but propagated delay can be worked on. An example of aircraft swap is given to show that aircraft routing can potentially reduce the flight delays. To solve robust aircraft routing problems, we propose a list of formulations. They are in three categories – Lan, Clarke, Barnhart’s approach, chance-constrained programming approach, and extreme value approach. We conduct experiments with two airline networks – a 50-flight network and a 165-flight network. The K-fold cross validation approach is incorporated into aircraft routing problems to eliminate overfitting. According to the three evaluation metrics – on time performance, average total propagated delay and passenger disruptions, several good formulations are identified, which are recommended for airline schedule planners. We also explain the reasons behind the solution differences.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Industrial Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Li, Guanqun

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lavanya, Marla

• airline scheduling
• optimization
• aircraft routing
• propagated delay

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Guanqun Li

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/88051

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/88051