Course Contents This course provides students with knowledge to analyse planning problems related to airline operations and to develop
modeling approaches to solve these problems. The focus is on the relationship between planning models and their operational
implications. It starts with a general overview of the airline demand analysis, followed by the study of the planning framework
which airlines operate in. This planning framework includes strategic decisions, namely fleet planning and network
development, tactical decisions, such as scheduling and maintenance planning.
Study Goals At the end of the course, the students should be able to:
Obj1: identify the main strategic, tactical, and operational problems of an airline;
Obj2: get familiarized with the development and implementation of some modeling techniques:
(a) mix-integer linear programming,
(b) multi-commodity flow networks,
(c) time-space networks,
(d) Markov decision programming.
Obj3: get familiarized with the development and implementation of some solution techniques:
(a) branch-and-bound,
(b) column generation,
(c) dynamic programming.
Obj4: identify, formulate and solve airline strategic and tactical planning problems:
(a) airline networks development,
(b) fleet planning,
(c) frequency planning,
(d) aircraft assignment and routing planning,
(e) crew scheduling, and
(f) maintenance planning.
Obj5: identify an airline operations problem, analyse and solve it;
Obj6: explain the implications of airline planning decisions and report them in an academic manner
