Dynamic model for scheduling crew shifts

Abstract

In regular as well as nonscheduled air transport, extraordinary situations occasionally occur, which may fundamentally disrupt the flight schedule. Fundamental disruptions of flight schedules affect not only passengers but also the airline. One of the areas that are negatively affected by the disruption is the crew plan. Due to extraordinary events, it happens that a flight is delayed, and the crew will not be at the destination airport at the prescribed time and the airline will not be able to assign it on further flights according to the original plan. Such situations can be resolved either by deploying any other available crew or by delaying the flight appropriately until the previously planned crew is available. Assigning a new crew entails additional costs for the airline, as it has to assign more flight staff than had been originally planned. Furthermore, delayed flights lead to paying passengers financial compensation, incurring additional costs for airlines. Therefore, it is important that the airline is able to resolve any irregularity situations so that the additional costs incurred to deal with the irregularity situations are kept at a minimum. The paper presents one possible approach, a mathematical model that can be used to solve such a situation. The presented mathematical model may be the basis for the decision support system of the operations center worker who is responsible for the operational management of flight crews. The model will primarily aim at smaller airlines that cannot afford expensive software and often rely on manual solutions. However, a manual solution may not always be the best, as the operator, who plans the processes, may not consider all the constraints. Another important factor that makes the decision processes more difficult is that it is usually necessary to decide in a short period of time. The solution proposed in this paper will allow the operator to make a quick decision that will also be the most advantageous for the airline. This is because the proposed method is an exact approach, which guarantees finding the optimum solution. In this article, we are only dealing with pilot crews.