Solving the airline recovery problem based on vehicle routing problem with time window modeling and genetic algorithm

Disruptions caused by severe weather conditions, congestion at airports, air traffic control and mechanical failures can result in breakdown of planned schedule. To cope with these disruptions, the airline should recover from its disrupted schedule. The recovery includes aircrafts, crew and passengers recovery. We propose a method of modeling to this problem. The method transforms the airline recovery problem into a vehicle routing problem with time window, and the formulation considering aircrafts´ rerouting and passengers´ delivery is presented. Based on the model we present and the data from an airline in China, we carried out experimental computations. The result shows our model and solving method could be used in practical airline recovery.