An Integer Programming model for air transport of hazardous and special shipments

The aircraft loading problem is a real-world combinatorial optimisation problem highly constrained. This weight must be distributed to keep the centre of gravity within specified limits. Moreover, an aircraft has usually several cargo compart-ments with specific contours and structural limitations such as floor loading, com-bined load limits and cumulative load limitations. Finally, some shipments are par-ticularly restrictive to transport, like dangerous goods, live animals and perishable goods. This paper is concerned with the incorporation of these latter constraints in a mixed integer linear program for the problem of loading a set of Unit Load-ing Devices and bulk into an aircraft. Experimental results show that our method achieves optimal solutions within only few seconds