Optimizing airline crew scheduling using biased randomization: a case study

Abstract

Various complex decision making problems are related to airline planning. In the competitive airline industry, ecient crew scheduling is hereby of major practical importance. This paper presents a metaheuristic approach based on biased randomization to tackle the challenging Crew Pairing Problem (CPP). The objective of the CPP is the establishment of ight pairings allowing for cost minimizing crew- ight assignments. Experiments are done using a real-life case with dierent constraints. The results show that our easy-to-use and fast algorithm reduces overall crew ying times and the necessary number of accompanying crews compared to the pairings currently applied by the company.