A decentralized approach for ground handling fleet management at airports

In this communication the problem of managing in a collaborative way airport ground handling is studied. The optimization of ground handling fleet management is considered with the aim of minimizing aircraft delays at departure in addition to the operational cost of the ground service fleets. The complexity of the resulting optimization problem and operational considerations lead to propose a decentralized management structure to solve the nominal as well as the real time fleet management problem. Then, after proposing a collaborative scheme between ground handling fleet managers, airlines and airport authorities, an heuristic approach is proposed to solve each fleet management problem. A case study considering a large airport is discussed.