A Column Generation Approach for Solving an Airport Ground Service Task Assignment & Sequencing Problem

In this paper, we study a task assignment & sequencing problem in the context of airport ground handling services. A task represents a service performed by one or multiple ground crew with required qualifications and proficiency within a prescribed time. The problem is to assign tasks to all the available and qualified shifts while maximizing the sum of the generated benefits. While modeling the situation as a network optimization problem, we propose a branch-and-price procedure with an acceleration strategy using Tabu search. Numerical experiments based on actual masked data show that the proposed approach can solve problems up to 240 tasks and 72 shifts in less than 45 minutes. Further, we perform a sensitivity analysis to study the effect of tasks and shifts on the overall benefits. The results reveal that the decision-makers should primarily focus on two areas - the duration of the work hours and the qualifications of the workforce - for reaping higher benefits