Airline Crew Scheduling: State-of-the-Art

The airline industry is faced with some of the largest scheduling problems of any industry. The crew scheduling problem involves the optimal allocation of crews to flights. Over the last two decades the magnitude and complexity of crew scheduling problems have grown enormously and airlines are relying more on automated mathematical procedures as a practical necessity. In this paper we survey different approaches studied and discuss the state-of-the-art in solution methodology for the airline crew scheduling problem. We conclude with a discussion about promising areas for further work to make it possible to get very good solutions for the crew scheduling problem.