An Improved Zero-One Linear Programming Model for the Plane Boarding Problem

This chapter sets out to survey the traditional plane boarding strategies employed by major airlines in the commercial aviation industry. It then reviews the simulation-based and analytical approaches to getting passengers on an aircraft in the existing literature before zeroing in on the latter. A new integer program is proposed to minimize the time required to eliminate the interferences among all passengers when boarding a flight so that the plane can take off as soon as possible. The mathematical model is subsequently put to test in an example involving a hypothetical small aircraft, and the results show that it is more efficient as well as more flexible than those proposed in other studies. Other ways to shorten the enplaning time are also discussed. The contributions of the present work and several directions for future research are described in the conclusions.