CORMSIS seminar: Airline Reserve Crew Scheduling Under Uncertainty Event

Event details

Abstract: During daily operations, airline schedules are subject to internal and external disturbances which may lead to delays and cancellations. This talk will give an overview of the findings from a PhD project on the subject of Airline Reserve Crew Scheduling under Uncertainty. The objective was to find a combination of a reserve crew schedule and reserve use policy such that the expected level of delay and cancellation disruptions that would be experienced on the day of operation would be minimised. A reserve crew schedule determines the daily start times of the standby-reserve crew. The reserve crew schedule is determined offline before the day of operation. A reserve policy determines which and if reserve crew should be used to replace absent or delayed crew in any given situation, reserve policies are applied online on the day of operation. The research carried out considered: heuristic, probabilistic and scenario-based approaches for scheduling reserve crew. These approaches were then tested in conjunction with a number of different reserve policies. The research yielded many interesting insights that were shared with the commercial partner.