Optimization of Fleet Assignment: A Case Study in Turkey

Abstract

Since poor fleet assignment can cause a great increase in costs for airline companies, a solution of the type 'right fleet for the right flight' would be very useful. In this paper, a fleet assignment model is set up using the data of the largest Airline Company in Turkey, Turkish Airlines. The aim of this model is to assign the most appropriate fleet type to flights while minimizing the cost and determining the optimal number of aircraft grounded overnight at each airport. We set up a model with constraints with thinking all airline operations and solve our problem using integer linear programming. Finally, we get an optimum solution which minimizes the total cost while assigning the fleet type to the flight leg. Using optimization software (Lindo 6.1), the solution to this problem generates a minimum daily cost of fleet assignment.

Particle swarm optimization for airlines fleet assignment

“…The fleet assignment process is usually depending on the airline's flight network and it formed as a mixed integer program [18]. Two main trends were used when constructing networks: the use of arcs to represent connections (connected networks), and the use of arcs to represent flight segments (time-space networks).…”

Fleet Assignment Optimization and Fleet Use Evaluation on Crew Pairing Without Sit Time

“…Cases related to costs can be studied from a research conducted in Turkey (Ozdemir et al, 2012) that aimed to minimize the total cost while determining the number of aircrafts staying overnight at hangar. Another study, which is similar but conducted in Indonesia in a different year and objects (Blegur et al, 2014), suggested three scenarios for fleet assignment with their respective objectives, i.e.…”

“…Parameter 𝐵 𝑖,𝑗 indicates the cost of using fleet type j for flights I, while 𝑁 𝑗 indicates the number of attributed to the average demand (the number of passengers) which was higher than the seat capacity of Boeing 737-800NG. Meanwhile, in Ozdemir et al (2012), almost half (47.82%) of the total flights on the day were served by B737 even though the number of fleets was smaller than the other fleet types. In relation to demand, indeed 54.34% of the number of passengers was still below the B737 seat capacity.…”

“…Other fleets (besides those mentioned in Table 7) stayed overnight at CGK. According to Ozdemir et al (2012), these aircrafts were parked, required nightly maintenance, or were prepared to serve other flights beyond the cases included in this research. Based on Table 7, most aircrafts (both A333 and B738) stayed overnight in Banten.…”