Airline scheduling problems

The success of the air transportation industry depends to a great extent on its scheduling ability. Faced with limited time, rising costs, competitive actions, and uncertain markets, the airlines must select a profitable set of flight schedules from a vast number of possibilities. For the larger airlines, the process has grown to include a number of computer-based aids. However, airline scheduling is still more of an art than a science and continues to challenge the mathematician, systems engineer, and computer specialist, as well as the schedulers, themselves.