Integer programming model formulations for over constrained flight - Gate assignment problem

Abstract

Flight - Gate assignment problems are complex real world problems involving different constraints. Some of these constraints include plane-gate eligibility, assigning planes of the same airline and planes getting service from the same ground handling companies to adjacent gates, buffers for changes in flight schedules, night stand flights, priority of some gates over others, and so on. In literature there are models to solve this highly complicated problem and tackle its complexity. In this study, we propose two different Integer programming (IP) models, namely, timetabling and assignment based models to solve the problem to optimality. These models prove to be highly efficient in that the computational times are quite short. We also provide the results for one day operation of an airport using real world data. Although, the research is still in progress, in the final section we present our conclusions based on our study done so far.