Check-In Counter Planning via a Network Flow Approach

Finding an appropriated number of open check-in counters is a typical planning problem on an airport. The problem has to take into account the flight plan, the arrival patterns of passengers and a given service level (max. waiting time of a passenger before being served). The goal is to generate a schedule for the check-in counters that uses as few as possible check-in counters per time. We present a network flow formulation for this problem and discuss additional constraints relevant for real-world scenarios. We show how to solve the model and present numerical results on artificial as well as on real-world data. The model is part of the Inform GroundStar suite that successful is in use on more than 200 airports world-wide.