A fast airplane boarding strategy using online seat assignment based on passenger classification

مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Airlines only generate profit when their airplanes are flying, therefore a common issue in airline industry is the minimization of the time they spend at the airports. This time, usually referred to as turnaround time (TAT), requires special attention. Several different ground operations are performed during TAT. Most of them can take place simultaneously, others, such as passengers boarding, cannot start until other processes, such as fueling, cleaning and catering, have been successfully completed. The boarding process plays an important role with respect to the TAT, since it is on its critical path Steiner and Philipp (2009). In this case, a substantial reduction of the boarding time can reduce the TAT by approximately the same amount. This topic has been previously investigated by many authors. Anoverview of their study can be found in Mas et al. (2013). Many strategies have been simulated under several assumptions for finding the strategy which minimizes the total boarding time through the minimization of passenger interferences. Since each of the mentioned studies focused on different components of boarding delay, the authors do not agree on the best overall approach. On the other hand, the problem of practical implementation of these strategies has not been studied in deep in the previous literature.

In this paper we present a novel technique based on passengers classification which results in a new strategy for reducing boarding time. Our work has been influenced by Jason H. Steffen who, in Steffen (2008), presented an optimum boarding method that works only if passengers are placed in a specific position in the boarding line that depends upon their ticketed seat location. In addition, Steffen method does not consider all the variables that come into play in a real boarding scenario, such as reserved seats and passengers who travel in group, making it inconvenient to implement in reality, as well as incompatible with passengers satisfaction and thus with airline plans.

The approach presented in this paper extends Steffen methodboth making the boarding faster and allowing a streamlining of the gate infrastructure. This is achieved by assigning seats to passenger based on their hand-luggage, as considered also in Milne and Kelly (2014), and on their agility. Moreover, our algorithm takes into account the constraints created by passengers with reserved seats and it is also able to handle passenger groups.