IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/oprepe/v5y2018icp265-279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prescriptive analytics in airline operations: Arrival time prediction and cost index optimization for short-haul flights

Author

Listed:
  • Achenbach, Anna
  • Spinler, Stefan

Abstract

In this paper, we provide arrival time prediction combined with a cost index optimization model for short haul flights. Our work is based on flight data of a European network carrier. We focus on predicting the arrival time for incoming flights at two hub locations. Airlines focus on two aspects in their operations: Minimizing cost while ensuring on-time arrivals. Especially network carriers with hub connections need to ensure that incoming flights are on time for passenger, crew and aircraft transfer. The cost index is a tool for optimizing the aircraft’s speed. A high cost index implies a faster flight. The cost of time is set in relation to the cost of fuel. Today there is no model for arrival time prediction and integrated cost index optimization. We consider three different flight distances to model the impact of cost index changes on gate arrival time. With our model airlines are able to reduce the cost index without any tangible impact on their overall schedule. We conclude that the optimal cost index level heavily depends on a flight’s distance, fuel costs and delay costs. Especially for short haul flights we recommend lowering the cost index as a high cost index has limited impact on gate arrival time.

Suggested Citation

  • Achenbach, Anna & Spinler, Stefan, 2018. "Prescriptive analytics in airline operations: Arrival time prediction and cost index optimization for short-haul flights," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 5(C), pages 265-279.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:oprepe:v:5:y:2018:i:c:p:265-279
    DOI: 10.1016/j.orp.2018.08.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214716018300538
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.orp.2018.08.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim, Myung Suk, 2016. "Analysis of short-term forecasting for flight arrival time," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 35-41.
    2. Campanelli, Bruno & Fleurquin, Pablo & Arranz, Andrés & Etxebarria, Izaro & Ciruelos, Carla & Eguíluz, Víctor M. & Ramasco, José J., 2016. "Comparing the modeling of delay propagation in the US and European air traffic networks," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(PA), pages 12-18.
    3. Abdelghany, Khaled F. & Abdelghany, Ahmed F. & Ekollu, Goutham, 2008. "An integrated decision support tool for airlines schedule recovery during irregular operations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 185(2), pages 825-848, March.
    4. Edwards, Holly A. & Dixon-Hardy, Darron & Wadud, Zia, 2016. "Aircraft cost index and the future of carbon emissions from air travel," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 553-562.
    5. Tu, Yufeng & Ball, Michael O. & Jank, Wolfgang S., 2008. "Estimating Flight Departure Delay DistributionsA Statistical Approach With Long-Term Trend and Short-Term Pattern," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103, pages 112-125, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Srinivas, Sharan & Ramachandiran, Surya & Rajendran, Suchithra, 2022. "Autonomous robot-driven deliveries: A review of recent developments and future directions," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rodríguez-Sanz, à lvaro & Comendador, Fernando Gómez & Valdés, Rosa Arnaldo & Pérez-Castán, Javier A., 2018. "Characterization and prediction of the airport operational saturation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 147-172.
    2. Diana, Tony, 2018. "Can machines learn how to forecast taxi-out time? A comparison of predictive models applied to the case of Seattle/Tacoma International Airport," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 149-164.
    3. Wang, Chunzheng & Hu, Minghua & Yang, Lei & Zhao, Zheng, 2022. "Improving the spatial-temporal generalization of flight block time prediction: A development of stacking models," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Khaled, Oumaima & Minoux, Michel & Mousseau, Vincent & Michel, Stéphane & Ceugniet, Xavier, 2018. "A multi-criteria repair/recovery framework for the tail assignment problem in airlines," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 137-151.
    5. Chandra, Aitichya & Verma, Ashish & Sooraj, K.P. & Padhi, Radhakant, 2023. "Modelling and assessment of the arrival and departure process at the terminal area: A case study of Chennai international airport," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 615(C).
    6. Du, Wen-Bo & Zhang, Ming-Yuan & Zhang, Yu & Cao, Xian-Bin & Zhang, Jun, 2018. "Delay causality network in air transport systems," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 466-476.
    7. Stephen J. Maher, 2016. "Solving the Integrated Airline Recovery Problem Using Column-and-Row Generation," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 216-239, February.
    8. Kafle, Nabin & Zou, Bo, 2016. "Modeling flight delay propagation: A new analytical-econometric approach," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 520-542.
    9. Pedro Jose Gudiel Pineda & Chao-Che Hsu & James J. H. Liou & Huai-Wei Lo, 2018. "A Hybrid Model for Aircraft Type Determination Following Flight Cancellation," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 17(04), pages 1147-1172, July.
    10. Kim, Myeonghyeon & Bae, Jiheon, 2021. "Modeling the flight departure delay using survival analysis in South Korea," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    11. Borgonjon, Tessa & Maenhout, Broos, 2022. "An exact approach for the personnel task rescheduling problem with task retiming," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 296(2), pages 465-484.
    12. Mariana Nicolae & Mazhar Arıkan & Vinayak Deshpande & Mark Ferguson, 2017. "Do Bags Fly Free? An Empirical Analysis of the Operational Implications of Airline Baggage Fees," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3187-3206, October.
    13. Zhe Zheng & Wenbin Wei & Bo Zou & Minghua Hu, 2020. "How Late Does Your Flight Depart? A Quantile Regression Approach for a Chinese Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-16, December.
    14. Lyu, Chen & Liu, Xiaoman & Wang, Zhen & Yang, Lu & Liu, Hao & Yang, Nan & Xu, Shaodong & Cao, Libin & Zhang, Zhe & Pang, Lingyun & Zhang, Li & Cai, Bofeng, 2023. "An emissions inventory using flight information reveals the long-term changes of aviation CO2 emissions in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PB).
    15. Yang, Yuanchao & Gao, Zichen, 2019. "Power optimization of the environmental control system for the civil more electric aircraft," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 196-206.
    16. Jonas Ingels & Broos Maenhout, 2018. "The impact of overtime as a time-based proactive scheduling and reactive allocation strategy on the robustness of a personnel shift roster," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 143-165, April.
    17. Obrad Babić & Milica Kalić & Goran Pavković & Slavica Dožić & Mirjana Čangalović, 2010. "Heuristic approach to the airline schedule disturbances problem," Transportation Planning and Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 257-280, February.
    18. Sato, Keisuke & Fukumura, Naoto, 2012. "Real-time freight locomotive rescheduling and uncovered train detection during disruption," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 221(3), pages 636-648.
    19. Michelle Dunbar & Gary Froyland & Cheng-Lung Wu, 2012. "Robust Airline Schedule Planning: Minimizing Propagated Delay in an Integrated Routing and Crewing Framework," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 204-216, May.
    20. Mazhar Arıkan & Vinayak Deshpande & Milind Sohoni, 2013. "Building Reliable Air-Travel Infrastructure Using Empirical Data and Stochastic Models of Airline Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 45-64, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:oprepe:v:5:y:2018:i:c:p:265-279. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/operations-research-perspectives .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.