Optimization for gate re-assignment

Hightlight•An improved model is proposed for the gate assignment problem without connecting passengers.•A novel multi-commodity network flow model is proposed for the gate assignment problem with connecting passengers.•Two efficient algorithms are proposed to solve the proposed models.

Disruptions such as adverse weather, flight delays and flight cancellations are a frequent occurrence in airport operations. A sophisticated gate assignment plan can be easily disrupted and serious consequences might be caused. Therefore, an efficient gate re-assignment methodology is of great importance for the airline industry. In this paper, we propose an efficient gate re-assignment methodology to deal with the disruptions, in which the objective function is to minimize the weighted sum of the total flight delays, the number of gate re-assignment operations and the number of missed passenger connections. Two multi-commodity network flow models are built for the pure gate re-assignment problem and the gate re-assignment problem with connecting passengers. Recognizing the inherent NP hard nature of the gate re-assignment problem, two heuristic algorithms are proposed to solve the models efficiently. The proposed models and algorithms are tested based on real-world data of a large U.S. carrier and computational results reveal that the proposed methodologies can provide high quality solutions within a short computational time.