An airline flight scheduling model considering time slot allocation and variable demand

This research develops a flight scheduling model considering time slot allocation and variable demand. In this model, airlines can improve their existing flight schedule and timetable by renting from and/or exchanging time slots with other airlines. The model is developed using the time-space network flow technique and contains a fleet-flow network and multiple passenger-flow networks. Different types of time slot are incorporated in the fleet-flow network, while a passenger flight choice model is employed with the passenger-flow networks to reflect the impact of changes in the airline timetable on passengers' choices. Since the model is formulated as a nonlinear mixed integer program which is characterized as NP-hard, a heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the problem instances with practical size. This research demonstrates the applicability of the proposed model in practice and examines the performance of the proposed heuristic algorithm using a problem instance generated from the data of a domestic airline and the airports in a country.