Reliability evaluation of a multistate flight network under time and stopover constraints

From the management perspective, network reliability is a crucial indicator to evaluate the service performance of many real-life networks. This research, therefore, focused on investigating network reliability in the airline industry and proposed an algorithm of evaluating flight network reliability of a multistate flight network (MSFN) considering the time and the number of stopovers. An MSFN is composed of nodes and arcs, in which each node denotes an airport and each arc represents a flight which connects a pair of nodes at fixed departure and arrival time. Flight network reliability is defined as the probability of successfully carrying a certain number of passengers from the origin to the final destination under the constraints of time and the number of stopovers. We first model the flight system into an MSFN and then generate all minimal capacity vectors that can satisfy demand under the time and stopovers constraints. Significantly, this study developed a searching method instead of giving all minimal flightpaths in advance and computed flight network reliability efficiently based on all the minimal capacity vectors. A case study from Ho Chi Minh City to Taipei is presented to demonstrate the solution procedure. The findings from this study are convinced to contribute equivalent information to policymakers and airlines executives for their strategic decision-making regarding flight network and thereby contribute to advancement towards sustainability.