Minding the gap: Optimizing airport schedule displacement and acceptability

Serious congestion problems at slot-controlled airports worldwide call for some action. Slot scheduling related research has mainly focused on scheduling models allocating airport capacity by optimising scheduling efficiency. However, existing literature does not capture the effect of slot allocation decisions on the acceptability of slot schedules. The objective of this paper is to investigate the trade-off between scheduling efficiency and the airlines’ dis-utility of slot schedules expressed by various metrics of schedule displacement. We develop and solve two bi-objective scheduling models considering different combinations of total and maximum acceptable slot displacement objectives. The proposed models are applied to real-world scheduling data. Substantial improvements in schedule acceptability metrics are achieved without sacrificing a lot in terms of scheduling efficiency. Sacrifices in scheduling efficiency increase the capability of the airport coordinator to allocate slots that are eventually acceptable and hence more intensively used.