Application of Integer Programming in Airline Crew Scheduling

In the airline industry in addition to salary and other benefits, the company is expected to cover the crew expenses that are needed to maintain its crew members outside their home base. So airlines should develop schedule for its crew that enables the company to have a better profit or meet its objective. Crew scheduling is a process of identifying a sequence flight legs, and assigning a flight crew for these sequenced flights. The main objective of the crew scheduling is to find set of pairings that cover all the scheduled flights with a minimum total crew cost while meeting the union and other government and aviation rules. This book is written to show the basics of planning and crew scheduling process in the airline industry. It also contains the mathematical model, solution method and practical problem to show all the processes in solving the scheduling problem.