Abstract

As in manufacturing, air transportation needs to anticipate, plan, monitor and adjust the production: transporting passengers and cargo from origins to their destinations. Broken production/operation results in deviations from the nominal airline operations plan and can cause, among others, flight delays, passenger discomfort and disturbances to maintenance and crew schedules. Even when disruptions are perceived as minor, they can propagate across air transportation network very quickly and affect other flights, airports, airlines and airspace. The seminar provides brief introduction to major business process in planning, operations and post-operations. The emphasis is on dependencies between these processes, the value of their alignment and methods and algorithms used in practice to maximize operational efficiency. Boeing is working with the University of Cambridge (UK) to develop prototype tools to support the decision making process for managing such disruptions. Brief description of the project and highlight of main accomplishments will be presented as well.