Aircraft-stand allocation at Schiphol Airport: an optimization procedure

The allocation of flights to stands at an airport is a quadratic multi-criteria programming problem under uncertainty. The problem should not be restricted to flights and gates but should include the stationing of aircraft at other locations of the airport. These other locations can replace gates for the handling of the aircraft, with bus service to the terminal building, but can also be used to park airplanes between arrival and departure. The allocation problem is quadratic due to relations between flights which involve the distance between the locations of the aircraft. The passengers’ walking distance between connecting flights is an example. With a different metric, the distance also is relevant to the apron-men and, with yet another metric, to crews working inside the building. There also are linear criteria. Gates and flights and aircraft have several properties which determine the suitability of a gate to accommodate a flight. The uncertainty in the problem is due to the stochastic nature of the arrival and departure times of flights.