Multi-criteria supplier selection in the airline retail industry: A real-world application at Netherlands’ major airline company

Since a company can merely perform as good as allowed by its suppliers, the extreme importance of supplier selection in supply chain management has been increasingly recognized. Supplier selection can be best described as a highly complex process due to the involvement of many, sometimes conflicting, both qualitative and quantitative criteria. The goal of supplier selection is to select the most suitable supplier(s) for meeting a company’s specific needs. This paper presents a case study on solving the supplier selection problem in the airline retail industry by means of a two-phased methodology. The first phase of the methodology employs a conjunctive screening method, which aims to reduce the initial set of potential suppliers prior to the comprehensive final choice phase. The second phase of the methodology employs a fuzzy AHP in which suppliers are evaluated against thirty-six sub-criteria. By means of combining the decision maker’s preferences and experts’ knowledge, the employment of the developed methodology will eventually result into a ranking of suppliers that enables to select the most suitable supplier(s). The paper concludes by proposing avenues for future research regarding the general applicability and further extensions.