Disruption management in the airline industry
Abstract
The first point of the study purpose is taken into account in the second and thirdchapter of this work. It helps to create the ground of the successive argument andit also shows the main problem that could generate a delays or a disruptions inthe airline industry. We know that the structure of airlines is divided into variousphase and they are strategic, tactical and operational phases. part of the strategicphase are Routes, Type of aircraft (size), Price / policy, Out-source and Planners.The tactical phase is composed by Normal week plan, Supports, Aircraft flightsmaintenance, Cycle Time and frequency of flight, Crew scheduling. Finally, theoperational phase is unrolled in Delay maintenance, Scheduling, Roll the plan,Disruption management.In all these phases can be possible to experience delays, but the phase most subjectto variations is the operational one.Moreover, in the third chapter we investigate more precisely the planning operationfor the crew and also the airplanes, so the background is complete to developthe main topic of the thesis.To reply at the second statement point, one complete chapter in this work isdedicated to this and it is the chapter six. The disruption situation originates in alocal event such as an aircraft maintenance problem, a flight delay, or an airportclosure or large traffic in the airport, but also for problems of crew and/or planescheduling or bad weather condition.The plans for aircraft assignments, crew assignments and maintenance of the flightschedule is handed over from the planning department to the operations controlcentre (OCC) a few days days ahead of the day of operation. The deadlines aredifferent for different resources. Short-haul plans are usually handed over one dayahead of the operation date, while long-haul information is handed over three tofive days before.When one disruption comes, operations personnel in the airlines must find realtimesolutions so that it is able to replace the airline to its original schedule assoon as possible.An operations control center is required to make important operational decisionswith significant operational and commercial ramifications and often under extremetime pressure and sometimes without complete information. Manual methodsoften mean that only one or two possible solution options can be consideredwith the prospect that a solution far from optimal across all the key areas maybe implemented. As a result of the sequential nature of manual processes, implementedfor one resource might very well have a profound impact on other areas.In the chapter seven, it is address the problem of analysis of some datas fromthe Avinor company and this is indicated as point three in the study purpose. Itis showed the more common charts and analysis to begin the dissertation aboutthe punctuality in the airlines. The company unfortunately didn t provide enoughmaterial and informations for an accurate analysis.For the sub-statements number four and five are fundamental the central chapters,especially the number five and six, so in conclusion it is possible to affirmthat this section seeks to determine the difference between the approach of theprevious authors. Considering the high number of work related presented, it isnot possible to present a detailed comparison of their approach with each of theworks mentioned. However, it is possible to present the main differences. In theiropinion, their work is different from previous ones regarding the following keyfeatures: the scope; technology ; integration; quality costs.In the field of restoration of operations, there are three dimensions: aircraft, crewand passengers. The authors classified its work according to the size that consideran integrated approach when you are able to address two of these dimensions.The authors work differs from the previous ones and in that it considers the threedimensions of the domain. In this sense and to the best of their knowledge, theirapproach is fully integrated.Both aircraft recovery and crew recovery problems have been considered. Boththe aircraft recovery and crew recovery problems have been modelled as multicommoditynetwork flow problems where the underlying network is connectionnetwork. The paper has also considered the correlation and dependency of twoproblems. A new algorithm has been presented which solves aircraft recoveryand crew recovery problems sequentially and in interactive manner, in the paper[62] and this could be the optimal solution. The subject algorithm takes into accountthe dependency of two problems, represents the correlation between themwithout integrating the two recovery problems.Moreover, to reply at the substatement four, one complete section is dedicatedfor that, in the chapter six. The MAS architecture, the multi-agent system is reallyinteresting and taken into account in this field of investigation. The agent andservice model were the outputs of this process and the base for this architecture.Moreover, it could be iterated for all the agents with the exception of the Supervisoragent.It is important to capture the costs of delaying or cancelling a flight, from thepoint of view of the passenger and not only from the point of view of the airlinecompany. The connected works that consider the cost of delaying a flight, assigna cost to each minute of delay. In the authors opinion, this only capturesthe cost from the point of view of the airline company because that cost is definedby the airline and it is valid for all flights, without considering the profilesof the passengers in the specific flight being affected by a disruption. The authors approach uses quality costs that considers the opinion of the passengers onthe specific flights and that is one of the biggest differences regarding the relatedwork published so far.To reply at the substatement six, there is all the chapter five that briefly saysthat the Air Transport Association has estimated that there were a total of 116.5million delay minutes in 2006, resulting in a $7.7 billion increase in direct operatingcosts to the U.S. airline industry. Nonetheless, also in the United States, theintroduction in 2006 of airspace flow program (APPs) enabled the FAA to targetmore precisely, en route, flights affected by weather. Because unaffected flightscould easily be excluded from ANSP interventions, this capability is estimated tohave reduced delay costs by $ 190 million over the first 2 years of implementation.Determining more specifically which flights should be subject to, and whichexempt from, a ground-holding action triggered by reduced airport capacity remainsan open research question. Moreover, with the increase in air traffic is notimpossible to run into the resulting delays also due to the crowding airports. Thetotal direct operation costs in 2006 amounted $ 7,663 per minute ( $ millions) andit is composed from fuel, crew, maintenance, aircraft ownership and others.The cost scenarios are derived from independently concurring sources on totalpassenger costs during 2003 . Two airline sources have also been used to rationalisethe equal split between hard and soft costs and we show that in total are0.16, 0.36, 0.42 respectively for low base and high cost in percentage. Overall,the total base cost scenario for 2008 is 20% higher than the value of 2003.Finally, the discussion about the last sub-statement, the number seven, is developedin the chapter eight. In it is underlined the influence of the new trendsin the overall airline industry, and in what way they should be changed also thedisruptions management and the manage of the delays.There are three main changes to adopt to ATM. The first one is to utilize a new4D principal trajectoryb. The second is a system wide information managementand the latest is the automation.In that way it will be possible to enable EU skies to handle 3 times more trafficthan nowadays, at the same time improving safety by a factor of 10, reducing theenvironmental impactper flight by 10 % and also cutting ATM costsby 50 %.