Reserve Fleet Optimisation

Assessing airline operational performance impact of capacity changes on past operations

Master thesis (2024)

Authors

M. Correia da Silva Guerra Nunes Aerospace Engineering

Contributors

A. Bombelli Air Transport & Operations - Aerospace Engineering (supervisor 1)
D. Gougousis (coach)
P.C. Roling Air Transport & Operations - Aerospace Engineering (coach)
F. Oliviero Flight Performance and Propulsion - Aerospace Engineering (coach)
M. Ansems (coach)
Faculty
Aerospace Engineering
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Published Date

26-04-2024

Language

English

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

Airline reserve fleet capacity is a strategic resource that provides airlines the means to add robustness to their schedules. This paper focuses on leveraging past data on airlines' execution of planned schedules (resulting delays, cancellations and missed connections), along with the disruptions that prohibited the flawless execution of the planned schedules, in order to assess the impact of reserve fleet composition changes on past days of operations. The fleet schedule is modeled as a set of parallel time-space networks, and a Mixed Integer Linear Programming model is defined and solved with the objective of minimising passengers' disruption costs incurred during execution of the planned schedule. By adjusting the reserve fleet within the model, the resulting impact on disruption costs and operational performance indicators is quantified. The approach presented can be applied on heterogeneous fleets and to hub-and-spoke airlines. Its performance is discussed using a case study on the network of a Full Service Carrier operating in Europe. Simulated results of all reserve fleet scenarios considered are compared with recorded passenger disruption data from the same period, demonstrating the model's capacity to emulate historically observed operational performance. Notably, the model (considering the same reserve fleet as was operated) exhibits an average deviation of 7.9% in disruption costs when compared with recorded data. The analysis of resulting disruption costs stemming from reserve fleet composition changes reveals that adding an A220 aircraft to the airline's reserve fleet would result in a slightly higher reduction (-5.7%) of disruption costs compared to adding an A320 aircraft (-5.3%). Conversely, removing an A320 aircraft from the reserve fleet would lead to a significantly higher increase in disruption costs (+20.5%) compared to removing one A220 aircraft as reserve (+16.9%). Consequently, when considering changes to the reserve fleet operated, the airline should prioritise alterations on the A220 portion of their fleet.