Evaluation of network reliability for stochastic-flow air transportation network considering discounted fares from airlines

Abstract

In the tourism sector, travel agent’s managers often set meeting customers’ demand as a top priority and often get discounts from airlines and the discounted fare on each flight depends on their booking, whereas, customers have their request in terms of travel time and cost. This study addresses the network reliability, the probability that the given demand can travel from an origin to a destination within the time threshold and the travel cost after discount does not exceed the budget, to indicate travel agents’ ability on satisfying customers’ demand under specific constraints. To calculate the network reliability, this work develops an algorithm, which determines all lower boundary points via the minimal concept. An air transportation system of the travel agent is constructed as a flow-network consisting of sets of nodes (airports) and arcs (flights). On each flight, there exists a contracted airline providing the service with stochastic capacity and corresponding probability. The flow-network in this study is typical stochastic, called a stochastic-flow air transportation network. A real case for the proposed algorithm demonstration and some management suggestions of the network reliability are provided.