Towards the optimisation of the scheduling of aircraft rotations

The aim of this research is to investigate the schedule punctuality and reliability issue regarding the turnaround operations of an aircraft at an airport and further to explore the influence of aircraft turnaround operations on the scheduling of aircraft rotation in a multiple airport environment. An "aircraft rotation model" is developed in this research by using a stochastic approach to consider the uncertainties in flight schedule punctuality in the air and on the ground as well as operational uncertainties in aircraft turnaround operations. The aircraft rotation model is composed of two sub-models, namely the aircraft turnaround model, which represents the operational process of a turnaround aircraft, and the en route model, which describes the en route flight time of an aircraft between two airports. [Continues.]