A heuristic-based multi-objective flight schedule generation framework for airline connectivity optimisation in bank structure: An empirical study on Air China in Chengdu

As the first step of airline schedule planning, flight scheduling plays a pivotal role in shaping an airline’s competitiveness, defining its profitability and establishing service levels by determining the timetable for potential city pairs. Although full-service carriers consider the bank structure as an effective method to improve flight connectivity and optimise aircraft utilisation, existing literature lacks models specially focused on optimising flight schedules within the bank structure. This paper effectively addresses the existing gap by proposing an integrated multi-objective flight scheduling model to optimise airline connectivity in bank structure. The generalised formulation allows airlines to maximise their connectivity while controlling the traffic flow during flight scheduling, offering more flexibility to adjust parameters according to their specific needs. By formulating the problem as an integrated tail-dependent one, this study measures the impact of aircraft routing decisions on the set of feasible flight pairings continuously. Further, a novel heuristic-based Selective Simulated Annealing (SSA) algorithm is designed to implement and solve the proposed model promptly. Computational results demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach, revealing that the systematic consideration of flight interactions leads to significant improvements in airline connectivity and aircraft utilisation. Notably, in test instances for over 200 daily flights, the proposed approach yields a solution that significantly increases airline connectivity by 18.58% while respecting the operational constraints. Validated with historical flight schedule data, the resolution approach serves as an efficient data-driven decision-making tool, which enables airlines to respond to the fast-changing air transportation market dynamics in real-time. In addition, this paper discusses and concludes with managerial insights regarding bank length verification and flight schedule optimisation.