IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaitra/v124y2025ics0969699725000067.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A new tool for robust aircraft routing: Superior Robust Aircraft Routing (sup-RAR)

Author

Listed:
  • Akıncılar, Aykan
  • Güner, Ertan

Abstract

Coping with uncertainty is one of the major challenges in airline operations planning. Due to its disruptive effect, researchers elaborate to build robust plans. However, it is still not clear “How to indicate a plan robust?†and “How to measure the robustness of a plan?†In order to fill these crucial gaps for robust aircraft routing sub-problem, a novel tool, which is named sup-robust aircraft routing (sup-RAR), is introduced in this study. Contribution of this new methodology is 4-dimensional: i. Producing tractable aircraft routing plans that are completely invulnerable to pre-defined uncertainties (absolutely robust AR plans); ii. Reflecting uncertainty in delay via 3 novel point of views; iii. The very first attempt in the robust airline operations planning literature to develop an evaluation framework capable of assessing even absolutely robust plans, which brings with more reliable AR plans; iv. Leading more flexible and cost-efficient decisions by enabling renting option contrary to classical robust aircraft routing models. Following the introduction, necessity for such a tool is emphasized by indicating incapabilities of previous works. Then, the proposed sup-RAR methodology is introduced. To test validity and applicability of the sup-RAR methodology, a case study comprising of real dataset is conducted. In light of the results, astonishing insights are obtained.

Suggested Citation

  • Akıncılar, Aykan & Güner, Ertan, 2025. "A new tool for robust aircraft routing: Superior Robust Aircraft Routing (sup-RAR)," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:124:y:2025:i:c:s0969699725000067
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2025.102744
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699725000067
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2025.102744?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ram Gopalan & Kalyan T. Talluri, 1998. "The Aircraft Maintenance Routing Problem," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 260-271, April.
    2. Kalyan T. Talluri, 1998. "The Four-Day Aircraft Maintenance Routing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(1), pages 43-53, February.
    3. Andrew J. Schaefer & Ellis L. Johnson & Anton J. Kleywegt & George L. Nemhauser, 2005. "Airline Crew Scheduling Under Uncertainty," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(3), pages 340-348, August.
    4. Kenan, Nabil & Jebali, Aida & Diabat, Ali, 2018. "The integrated aircraft routing problem with optional flights and delay considerations," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 355-375.
    5. Chiwei Yan & Jerry Kung, 2018. "Robust Aircraft Routing," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(1), pages 118-133, January.
    6. Andrew Schaefer & George Nemhauser, 2006. "Improving airline operational performance through schedule perturbation," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 3-16, April.
    7. 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.
    8. Guy Desaulniers & Jacques Desrosiers & Yvan Dumas & Marius M. Solomon & François Soumis, 1997. "Daily Aircraft Routing and Scheduling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(6), pages 841-855, June.
    9. Kohl, Niklas & Larsen, Allan & Larsen, Jesper & Ross, Alex & Tiourine, Sergey, 2007. "Airline disruption management—Perspectives, experiences and outlook," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 149-162.
    10. Safaei, Nima & Jardine, Andrew K.S., 2018. "Aircraft routing with generalized maintenance constraints," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 111-122.
    11. Dimitris Bertsimas & Melvyn Sim, 2004. "The Price of Robustness," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(1), pages 35-53, February.
    12. Ding, Yida & Wandelt, Sebastian & Wu, Guohua & Xu, Yifan & Sun, Xiaoqian, 2023. "Towards efficient airline disruption recovery with reinforcement learning," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    13. Zhao, Ai & Bard, Jonathan F. & Bickel, J. Eric, 2023. "A two-stage approach to aircraft recovery under uncertainty," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    14. Xu, Yifan & Adler, Nicole & Wandelt, Sebastian & Sun, Xiaoqian, 2024. "Competitive integrated airline schedule design and fleet assignment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 314(1), pages 32-50.
    15. Al-Ghzawi, Mamdouh & El-Rayes, Khaled, 2024. "Machine learning and multi-objective optimization methodology for planning construction phases of airport expansion projects," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    16. Wen, Xin & Sun, Xuting & Ma, Hoi-Lam & Sun, Yige, 2022. "A column generation approach for operational flight scheduling and aircraft maintenance routing," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    17. Jay M. Rosenberger & Ellis L. Johnson & George L. Nemhauser, 2004. "A Robust Fleet-Assignment Model with Hub Isolation and Short Cycles," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 357-368, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Xu, Yifan & Wandelt, Sebastian & Sun, Xiaoqian, 2021. "Airline integrated robust scheduling with a variable neighborhood search based heuristic," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 181-203.
    2. Liang, Zhe & Feng, Yuan & Zhang, Xiaoning & Wu, Tao & Chaovalitwongse, Wanpracha Art, 2015. "Robust weekly aircraft maintenance routing problem and the extension to the tail assignment problem," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 238-259.
    3. He, Yonghuan & Ma, Hoi-Lam & Park, Woo-Yong & Liu, Shi Qiang & Chung, Sai-Ho, 2023. "Maximizing robustness of aircraft routing with heterogeneous maintenance tasks," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    4. Parmentier, Axel & Meunier, Frédéric, 2020. "Aircraft routing and crew pairing: Updated algorithms at Air France," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    5. Wandelt, Sebastian & Signori, Andrea & Chang, Shuming & Wang, Shuang & Du, Zhuoming & Sun, Xiaoqian, 2025. "Unleashing the potential of operations research in air transport: A review of applications, methods, and challenges," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    6. Sanchez, David Torres & Boyacı, Burak & Zografos, Konstantinos G., 2020. "An optimisation framework for airline fleet maintenance scheduling with tail assignment considerations," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 142-164.
    7. Chunhua Gao & Ellis Johnson & Barry Smith, 2009. "Integrated Airline Fleet and Crew Robust Planning," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(1), pages 2-16, February.
    8. Wandelt, Sebastian & Wang, Shuang & Chen, Xinyue & Zheng, Changhong & Chang, Shuming & Sun, Xiaoqian, 2025. "Network structures in air transportation: A comprehensive review of applications and challenges," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    9. Glomb, Lukas & Liers, Frauke & Rösel, Florian, 2023. "Optimizing integrated aircraft assignment and turnaround handling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 310(3), pages 1051-1071.
    10. Hanif D. Sherali & Ki-Hwan Bae & Mohamed Haouari, 2013. "An Integrated Approach for Airline Flight Selection and Timing, Fleet Assignment, and Aircraft Routing," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(4), pages 455-476, November.
    11. Maher, Stephen J. & Desaulniers, Guy & Soumis, François, 2018. "The daily tail assignment problem under operational uncertainty using look-ahead maintenance constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(2), pages 534-547.
    12. Zhe Liang & Wanpracha Art Chaovalitwongse, 2013. "A Network-Based Model for the Integrated Weekly Aircraft Maintenance Routing and Fleet Assignment Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(4), pages 493-507, November.
    13. Sciau, Jean-Baptiste & Goyon, Agathe & Sarazin, Alexandre & Bascans, Jérémy & Prud’homme, Charles & Lorca, Xavier, 2024. "Using constraint programming to address the operational aircraft line maintenance scheduling problem," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    14. 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.
    15. Yan, Shangyao & Tang, Ching-Hui, 2009. "Inter-city bus scheduling under variable market share and uncertain market demands," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 178-192, February.
    16. Birolini, Sebastian & Jacquillat, Alexandre, 2023. "Day-ahead aircraft routing with data-driven primary delay predictions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 310(1), pages 379-396.
    17. Jean-François Cordeau & Goran Stojković & François Soumis & Jacques Desrosiers, 2001. "Benders Decomposition for Simultaneous Aircraft Routing and Crew Scheduling," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 375-388, November.
    18. Jane Lee & Lavanya Marla & Alexandre Jacquillat, 2020. "Dynamic Disruption Management in Airline Networks Under Airport Operating Uncertainty," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(4), pages 973-997, July.
    19. Xiao, Fan & Guo, Siqi & Huang, Lin & Huang, Lei & Liang, Zhe, 2022. "Integrated aircraft tail assignment and cargo routing problem with through cargo consideration," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 328-351.
    20. F M Zeghal & M Haouari & H D Sherali & N Aissaoui, 2011. "Flexible aircraft fleeting and routing at TunisAir," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(2), pages 368-380, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:jaitra:v:124:y:2025:i:c:s0969699725000067. 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/journal-of-air-transport-management/ .

    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.