Models and a genetic algorithm for static aircraft-gate assignment problem

Assigning aircraft to available gates at an airport can have a major impact on the efficiency of flight schedules and on the level of passenger satisfaction with the service. Unexpected changes, due to air traffic delays, severe weather conditions, or equipment failures, may disrupt the initial assignments and compound the difficulty of maintaining smooth station operations. Recently, mathematical models and procedures (optimal and heuristic) have been proposed to provide solutions with minimum dispersion of idle time periods for static aircraft-gate assignment problems. This paper introduces a unified framework to specifically treat the objective functions of the previous models. It also provides linear representations of these models and identifies the conditions under which the optimal solutions can be obtained in polynomial time. Furthermore, a genetic algorithm utilizing problem specific knowledge is proposed to provide effective alternative solutions.