The Allocation of Aircraft to Routes—An Example of Linear Programming Under Uncertain Demand

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate an application of linear programming to the problem of allocation of aircraft to routes in order to maximize expected profits when there is uncertain customer demand. The approach is intuitive; the theoretical basis of this work is found in an earlier study. The allocations are compared with those obtained under the usual procedure of assuming a fixed demand equal to the expected value. The computational procedure is similar to the fixed demand case, with only slightly more computational effort required.

This paper is intended both for readers interested in routing (and analogous resource allocation) problems and for those interested in studying an example of an application of linear programming under uncertainty.