Reducing ATFM delays through strategic flight planning

This paper presents an integer programming model for strategic redistribution of flights so as to respect nominal sector capacities, in short computation times for large-scale instances. The main contribution lies in the combination of tackling large-scale strategic flight planning using hard capacity constraints, while considering the whole network (i.e., both airports and sectors). Real historic data for network and traffic description are used for our test instance. Strategic and tactical impact assessments show that early flight planning can lead to the reduction of delays and their costs, showing potential for actual implementation. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.