Optimization of Fleet Assignment: A Case Study in Turkey

Since poor fleet assignment can cause a great increase in costs for airline companies, a solution of the type ‘right fleet for the right flight’ would be very useful. In this paper, a fleet assignment model is set up using the data of the largest Airline Company in Turkey, Turkish Airlines. The aim of this model is to assign the most appropriate fleet type to flights while minimizing the cost and determining the optimal number of aircraft grounded overnight at each airport. We set up a model with constraints with thinking all airline operations and solve our problem using integer linear programming. Finally, we get an optimum solution which minimizes the total cost while assigning the fleet type to the flight leg. Using optimization software (Lindo 6.1), the solution to this problem generates a minimum daily cost of fleet assignment.
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