PAMUKKALE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES-PAMUKKALE UNIVERSITESI MUHENDISLIK BILIMLERI DERGISI, vol.16, no.2, pp.181-191, 2010 (ESCI)
The Turkish Civil Aviation sector has grown at a rate of 53 % between the years 2002-2008 owing to country-wide economical developments and some removed restrictions in the aviation field. Successful international companies in the sector use advanced computer-supported solution methods for their planning and scheduling problems. These methods have been providing significant competitive advantages to those companies. There are four major scheduling and planning problems in the airline sector: flight scheduling, aircraft scheduling, crew scheduling and disruptions management. These aforementioned scheduling and planning problems faced by all airline companies in the airline sector were examined in detail. Studies reveal that companies using the advanced methods might gain significant cost reductions. However, even then, the time required for solving large scale problems may not satisfy the decision quality desired by decision makers. In such cases, using modern decision methods integrated with advanced technologies offer companies an opportunity for significant cost-advantages.