Schedule-level optimization of flight block times for improved airline schedule planning: A data-driven approach

The development of flight block time schedules for future airline operations is a critical aspect of the schedule development process. It involves determining the appropriate gate-to-gate time for each flight to optimize ontime performance and ensure efficient utilization of flight resources. This article presents a modeling framework that addresses the airlines' scheduled block time (SBT) design problem. The framework employs a novel data-driven optimization model that incorporates reliability measures at both the flight and schedule levels. This approach enables airline schedule planners to assess the relationship between the allocated SBT for each flight and the overall schedule reliability, and make informed decisions regarding the trade-off between schedule reliability and operational costs. Experiments show that the proposed methodology outperforms real-world SBT plans implemented by two major U.S. airlines, demonstrating its superiority. The results of this comparison indicate that the developed framework could assist airlines in improving reliability while deploying the same block time budget or in eliminating unnecessary slack in their schedules while achieving their targeted reliability, resulting in significant cost savings.