Application of a hybrid genetic algorithm to airline crew scheduling

This paper discusses the development and application of a hybrid genetic algorithm to airline crew scheduling problems. The hybrid algorithm consists of a steady-state genetic algorithm and a local search heuristic. The hybrid algorithm was tested on a set of 40 real-world problems. It found the optimal solution for half the problems, and good solutions for 9 others. The results were compared to those obtained with branch-and-cut and branch-and-bound algorithms. The branch-and-cut algorithm was significantly more successful than the hybrid algorithm, and the branch-and-bound algorithm slightly better.