A Three-Phase Approach to Solving the Bidline Problem

This paper describes a three-phase approach to solving the bidline generation problem within airline flightcrew scheduling. Phase 1 builds “patterns” from existing pairings. Phase 2 builds bidlines from the “patterns” found in Phase 1 and solves a set partitioning problem to generate a final schedule. If Phase 2 fails to cover enough of the scheduled work, Phase 3 is used to fill in the uncovered pairings. Along with this methodology is a new rule set that tries to improve the work–rest schedule for flightcrews by trying to take into account circadian rhythms. This new rule set is an attempt at addressing some of the flightcrews's quality of life issues.