Special Issue: 2002 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences: A New Era for Crew Recovery at Continental Airlines

Airlines face schedule disruptions daily because of unexpected events, including inclement weather, aircraft mechanical problems, and crew unavailability. These disruptions can cause flight delays and cancellations. As a result, crews may not be in position to service their remaining scheduled flights. Airlines must reassign crews quickly to cover open flights and to return them to their original schedules in a cost-effective manner while honoring all government regulations, contractual obligations, and quality-of-life requirements. CALEB Technologies developed the CrewSolver decision-support system for Continental Airlines to generate globally optimal, or near optimal, crew-recovery solutions. Since its implementation, the system has dealt successfully with several high-profile events, including the December 2000 and March 2001 Nor’easter snowstorms, the June 2001 Houston flood, and most dramatically, the September 11th terrorist attacks. In each case, Continental recovered quickly and obtained overall benefits worth millions of dollars. Continental estimates that in 2001 the CrewSolver system helped it save approximately US $40 million for major disruptions only. (Transportation: scheduling, personnel. Decision analysis: systems.)