Time Slot Allocation under Capacity Uncertainty

In this talk, we present mathematical models for the time slot allocation problem under uncertainty. The scope of the model is to allocate time slots to airlines while minimizing the deviation of the assigned slots to the requests. The model takes into account the existing EU/IATA rules, operational constraints, and coordination procedures with the ultimate objective of better accommodating airlines’ preferences at coordinated airports. To include uncertainty within the decision model, we present stochastic integer programming formulations with either recourse actions, probabilistic constraints or both. To solve the problem we present decomposition-based approaches. To ameliorate the computational performance of the proposed models, we present two approximations of the recourse function. Each approximation is characterized by a different trade-off between the quality of the solution computed and the computational performance. The first approximation uses a simple recourse function while the second utilizes a fixed recourse function. The computational analysis shows the viability of the proposed approach