Fleeting Route Design with Uncertainty

Abstract

During COVID-19, the air industry has shrunk due to drastically reduced demand and flight bans. Air transport network optimization is significant in fleet routing design, which helps the air company to make a decision to open the new routes while maximizing the profit. We want to study when an area is subjected to stability shocks that prevent air trac from entering, how air planners comprehensively consider the factors to design new fleeting routes while optimizing the profit. In this research, we start by developing a baseline model and then a networked model, both theoretical, to simulate the situation for an air company and provide optimization results. We find a simple situation to determine: if a route has a positive maximized expected profit, we will decide to open the route. The optimal results obtained from the model are proved to be optimal by mathematics analysis in the study. Several potential future study directions relevant to the research are discussed, including stochastic demand and network connection, which could be better explain the situation of air transport network design and thus be more applicable in reality.