Computational results for very large air crew scheduling problems

The airline crew scheduling problem is typically formulated as a set covering problem. The Federal Express Corporation has recently implemented a heuristic crew scheduling system based on this model. The system has been implemented on an IBM 3033 computer. Computational results are presented for crew scheduling problems with up to 3000 rows and 15,000 columns. Results of operational quality are obtained in less than one hour of computer time. This model provides a prototype for a wide variety of large scale crew scheduling applications.