Airline Schedule Perturbation Problem: Ground Delay Program with Splitable Resources

Abstract

The ground delay program is one of several programs that the Federal Aviation Administration is currently administering for efficient and equitable use of scarce airspace and airport capacity. In [11], we studied the airline schedule perturbation problem under the ground delay program in limited scope and with restriction on the flow of resources in the network. The objective of this paper is to tackle the general case of the ground delay program in which both landing and takeoff are considered and resources are allowed to split after their arrivals.

The general problem is modeled as an integer program. To solve this model, we have derived valid inequalities for the integer programming formulation for strengthening the LP relaxation bound. The number of integer variables was reduced dramatically based on the analysis of the model, and its impact on the problem solvability was shown to be of significant importance. A heuristic procedure based on solving a restricted version of the model has been designed for finding good feasible solutions. Computational results indicate the effectiveness of the model reduction and the valid inequalities. Realistic problems have been solved to optimality within seconds using microcomputers.