Flight Assignment Problem for a Regional Airline

Mabel Chin Mei Bao

Abstract

In this project, we study the flight assignment problem of a regional airline to find the optimal solution of having sufficient aircraft to fulfill all the flight route requirements with the intention of minimizing the number of idle aircraft to save cost, while maximizing the revenue for the airline. When there is an idle aircraft, it incurred an additional cost to the regional airline by occupying a parking bay at the airport, and cost from the routine aircraft maintenance. The objective function of this study is revenue maximization, and it takes into consideration factors like profit earned from each fleet type and market demands on certain flight routes.

Gurobi solver and Python were used heavily in this study. By using the software, we can see a clearer picture when all the possible flight tours are listed. From there, we will select the most ideal flight tours which will give us the result of the minimum aircraft needed by the regional airline on a daily basis. By using these models, we will be able to generate a time-staggered diagram of the flight routes and conclude with an optimal result of the maximized revenue by having optimal tours.