Implementing a branch and price and cut method for the airline crew pairing optimization problem

摘要

We discuss the airline crew pairing optimization problem and present a solution method based on a combination of column and cut generation. The generated cuts are a subclass of subset-row inequalities. The pricing subproblem is solved by a label-setting algorithm with a new backtracking scheme and consideration of the generated cuts. The solution method for the linear relaxation is embedded in a branch-and-bound procedure with a constraint branching strategy and a new search strategy. We test our method on instances from domestic flight schedules of a European Airline.