An integrated model and solution algorithms for passenger, cargo, and combi flight scheduling

In this research, we develop an integrated scheduling model that combines passenger, cargo and combi flight scheduling. We employ network flow techniques to construct the model which is formulated as an integer multiple commodity network flow problem that is characterized as NP-hard. A family of heuristics, based on Lagrangian relaxation, a sub-gradient method, heuristics for the upper bound solution, and a flow decomposition algorithm, is developed to solve the model. The test results, mainly using data from a major Taiwan airline’s operations, show the good performance of the model and the solution algorithms.