Large Scale Airline Crew Scheduling

In the airline industry, crew planning is an essential task that every airline will face. Flight crew expenses constitute the second largest operating cost (Kohl and Karisch. 2004), second only to the rising cost of fuel. Crew planning refers to the assignment of flight segments to pilots and flight attendants so that they start and end at their base city, do not work more than the allowed time, etc. Because crew planning has a significant economic impact on the financial wellbeing of an airline, even small percentage improvements can easily translates into large cost savings, especially in nowadays’ highly competitive aviation industry with many low-fare carriers and thin profit margins. Given the numbers of flights and flight attendants, optimizing such an operation for an airline is daunting task. Navtech is a Waterloo-based company that specializes in helping airlines perform this complex operation. The current project will explore more advanced ways to improve the current solution platform they provide.

Faculty Supervisor:

Samir Elhedhli

Student:

Ahmed Saif, Burak Yildiz

Partner:

Navtech Inc.

Discipline:

Engineering - other

Sector:

Aerospace and defense

University:

University of Waterloo