A Generalized Dynamic Programming Approach for a Departure Scheduling Problem

Reducing the delays of the departing aircraft can potentially lead to improving the efficiency of the surface operations at airports. This paper addresses a departure scheduling problem with an objective to reduce total aircraft delays subject to timing and ordering constraints. The ordering constraints model the queuing area of airports where the aircraft align themselves in the form of chains before departing. By exploiting the structure of the problem, a generalized dynamic programming approach is presented to solve the departure scheduling problem optimally. Computational results indicate that the approach presented in this paper is reasonably fast, i.e., it takes less than one tenth of a second on average to solve a 40 aircraft problem. Also, the approach produces optimal sequences whose delay is approximately 12 minutes, on average, less than the delays produced by the First Come First Serve (FCFS) sequences.