Modeling and Solving the Network-Wide Airport Slot Allocation Problem with Connectivity, Efficiency and Fairness Considerations

Due to serious demand-supply imbalances, many airports around the world are highly congested. Access to these highly congested (Level 3, coordinated) airports is controlled through the use of the IATA World Airport Slot allocation Guidelines (WASG). At an individual airport, slots requested by each airline are allocated at the airport under consideration independently without taking into account the interactions between slots allocated at different airports. However, in order for the air-transport network to operate seamlessly, ensuring network-wide connectivity of flights, and the interdependencies existing between the slots allocated at individual airports need to be considered. Several models have been proposed in the literature to deal with the optimum allocation of slots at a single airport. However, the literature currently does not adequately address the network-wide slot allocation problem. In this paper, we are introducing a novel approach to address the network-wide slot allocation problem. Our approach considers as an input the individual airport schedules generated during the slot allocation process at individual airports and optimally adjusts them to ensure network-wide flight connectivity by taking into account the interdependencies existing between flights connecting pairs of airports