An Exact Solution Approach for the Preferential Bidding System Problem in the Airline Industry

Heykel Achour (), Michel Gamache (), François Soumis () and Guy Desaulniers ()
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Heykel Achour: École Polytechnique de Montréal and GERAD, C.P. 6079 succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3A7
Michel Gamache: École Polytechnique de Montréal and GERAD, C.P. 6079 succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3A7
François Soumis: École Polytechnique de Montréal and GERAD, C.P. 6079 succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3A7
Guy Desaulniers: École Polytechnique de Montréal and GERAD, C.P. 6079 succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3A7

Transportation Science, 2007, vol. 41, issue 3, 354-365

Abstract: This paper introduces the first exact approach for constructing aircrew member personalized monthly work schedules when a preferential bidding system (PBS) is used. With such a system, each employee bids for his/her preferred activities, yielding a bidding score for each feasible schedule. The PBS problem thus consists of assigning to each employee a schedule that maximizes his/her preferences, in order of seniority, while covering all crew pairings. The proposed exact solution approach relies on column generation, and when a tentative maximum score for a crew member is established, it explicitly enumerates for that employee all feasible schedules with that score. Tests on real-life cases show that this approach can substantially improve the quality of the solutions produced by the best known existing method in similar computational times.

Keywords: airline industry; crew scheduling; preferential bidding system; branch and price (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:41:y:2007:i:3:p:354-365

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