Optimization of multi-objective airport gate assignment problem: considering fairness between airlines

The Airport Gate Assignment Problem (AGAP) deals with assigning a set of aircraft to the gates at airports with respect to several operational and commercial constraints. In this study, we model the AGAP as a multi-objective optimization problem that minimizes the aircraft taxiing costs and passenger walking distance. An additional consideration is taken regarding the fairness of assignment among different airlines. To solve this problem, we propose the NSGA-II-LNS algorithm which builds upon the NSGA-II framework and incorporates the advantages of Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) for refining the solution quality. Two search operators are designed within LNS tailored to different senses of fairness coefficients. A numerical study at Nanjing Lukou International Airport indicates that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the previously published algorithms in terms of both solution convergence and diversity. Moreover, acceptable computing time implies the practical potential of our model.