Abstract:

Airport gate is one of the most primary resources of an airport,and real-time gate assignment has been paid more and more attention. To achieve appropriate real-time gate assignment under small-scale flight delays,a principle of minimum delay cost for multi-agent (airlines,airports and passengers)is established and an integrative real-time gate assignment model based on collaborative decision making (CDM)between airport and airlines is proposed. With mixed set programming (MSP)for modeling and optimization,not only the costs of ground taxiing of aircraft and the waiting of transfer passengers can be minimized,but also the increased fuel cost for the aircraft of the same type belonging to each airline can be balanced. Meanwhile,the flight banks of delayed flights can be connected effectively without adverse impacts on the interests of airlines. The illustrative example testifies that the collaboration between airport and airlines can be implemented,and the slot assignment as well as the gate assignment can be implemented through the integration of these algorithms in MSP,therefore both the operation cost and the computation time generated in the algorithm can be decreased. Analyses show that the proposed approach is qualified to serve as a guideline for practical operation of airport and airlines in air transportation.

Key words: flight delay, real-time gate assignment, flight bank, CDM, MSP