Airport gate assignment for minimizing walking distances while maximizing airlines’ preferences

The airport gate assignment problem (GAP) is one of the most important problems operations managers face daily. The main objective consists on assign each flight to an available gate at a time. As this becomes a problem with multiple solutions operational managers try to achieve the optimal solution. But then again, this optimal solution could be different depending on the other objectives we have apart from locating the aircrafts. Typically, main objective can be classified into two types depending on the airport's emphasis: oriented to airport or oriented to passengers. By airport-oriented we mean maximizing the operational efficiency of the airport, like gate preferences and number of aircraft towing procedures while for passenger-oriented we meant maximizing the passengers' conveniences, as the total walking distances or transfer passenger's delays. Majority of this objectives, like delays, call for a solution able to be updated in real time. Which brings as not only to an assignment problem but to a reassignment solution. In this paper, we will offer a mathematical formulation and the resolution method to cover a GAP with more than one objective. A trade-off will be assist, between finding a solution that benefits both passengers and airports, with the objective of minimizing passenger's walking distances while maximizing airlines gate preferences. Furthermore, we will provide a program for reassignment of the first optimal solution in case of delays by computerized decision making method