Equitable optimization of US airline route networks

Restructuring route networks (i.e., modifying the graph of origin-destination pairs) remains a promising alternative for reducing airline industry's environmental impact. However, there exists fundamental trade-off between emissions from flight and airport accessibility, since flights connecting underserved, low-accessibility communities tend to possess high CO2/seat-mile ratios. Thus, this work develops an open-source analytical framework methodology that restructures U.S. simultaneously minimize maximize accessibility. To achieve goal, paper designs metric quantify accessibility combines it with system-wide estimation methodology. This facilitates creation mixed-integer linear optimization model returns revised frequencies aircraft allotment. Using United Airlines 2019 Q3 data as case study, is able construct network 25% reduction on total number flights, 4.4% decrease in average per seat-mile 17.6% improvement spread airports' scores, all while satisfying historic passenger demand.