Problem Solving in Airline Operations

Operations research has been very successfully applied to problems arising in airline operations. In an airline environment, there is a need to combine large production optimization with the prototyping power of modeling systems. For more than 14 years, Carmen Systems has developed a combined modeling and rule system, Carmen Rave, which is currently deployed by 20 airlines and 3 railway companies. One of Carmen's first clients was Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). Since 2002, Carmen Rave controls all crew management systems at SAS, including the real-time tracking system and various optimization applications. With the corporate rule system, SAS an constantly adjust to changes in the operation and can also perform simulations to analyze the consequences of potential modifications in the critical crew management systems. SAS has also fulfilled the following business goals when implementing a corporate legality system: cost reductions, time to market changes and development, and minimization of risk. The use of the Rave modeling language at SAS is a good example of the application of the problem-solving paradigm in a complex airline environment.