Decision Support for Schedule Recovery at Lufthansa Group Airlines

Toby O. Davies (), Daniel Duque (), Emily Masten (), Tom Tangl (), Eric Bruneton (), Alejandra Estanislao (), Jon Orwant (), Daniel Bogado Duffner (), Michael Frey () and Christian Most ()
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Toby O. Davies: Google Research, Pyrmont, New South Wales 2009, Australia
Daniel Duque: Google Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Emily Masten: Google Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Tom Tangl: Google Research, 75009 Paris, France
Eric Bruneton: Google Research, 75009 Paris, France
Alejandra Estanislao: Google Research, 8004 Zürich, Switzerland
Jon Orwant: Google Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Daniel Bogado Duffner: Swiss International Airlines, 8302 Zürich, Switzerland
Michael Frey: Swiss International Airlines, 8302 Zürich, Switzerland
Christian Most: Lufthansa Airlines, 60546 Frankfurt, Germany

Interfaces, 2026, vol. 56, issue 1, 58-75

Abstract: In 2019, Lufthansa and Google began a five-year collaboration to apply operations research techniques to operational airline schedule recovery, jointly optimizing over aircraft, passengers, and crew to ensure that disruptions such as flight delays are mitigated smoothly. The resulting Operations Decision Support Suite (OPSD) implements several novel decomposition techniques and heuristics. The service is in daily use by Lufthansa subsidiary Swiss International Airlines, with EUR 12 million and 14 kilotons of CO 2 already saved. It is currently being deployed to all airlines in the Lufthansa Group and is on track to save EUR 30 million and 50 kilotons of CO 2 annually.

Keywords: decision support; optimization; airlines; disruptions; Edelman Award (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:56:y:2026:i:1:p:58-75

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