An Algorithm for Single–And Multiple-Runway Aircraft Landing Problem

Abstract

The aircraft landing problem (ALP) is the problem of allocating an airport's runways to arriving aircraft as well as scheduling the landing time of aircraft, with the objective of minimizing the total deviations from the target landing times. We propose simple heuristics to solve the ALP. The distinguishing factors of the proposed algorithms include decomposing the problem into a chain of smaller and easier-to-solve problems. We show that utilizing a combination of these factors is very effective in solving the problem in a short time. Our work is motivated by the dynamic nature of the problem, i.e., due to the continuous changes in the number of arriving flights and a short window for determining the landing schedules, the air traffic controllers will need to solve the problem on a regular basis and update the landing schedules, and fast and effective algorithms are therefore paramount. \textcolor{blue}{By solving two sets of 124 benchmark instances} we demonstrate that we fulfill this aim and that the proposed algorithms obtain satisfactory solutions in a short amount of time.

Keywords: aircraft landing problem, sequence relaxation, decomposition, runway allocation