A mathematical model for fleet assignment with maintenance scheduling and ramping activities

Maintenance routing is an important and complicated issue in aviation systems. Determining factors affecting delay and cost of flights is important as they cause customer dissatisfaction. Ramping and maintenance directly affect flights delay and cost. In this research, two novel models on maintenance routing based on flying time (not necessarily duty day) and ramp scheduling are developed. The objectives are cost and delay minimization. The mathematical models are solved using GAMS and sensitivity analyses are presented. The result of sensitivity analysis shows that an increase in the number of aircraft in maintenance model reduces cost and an increase in the number of machines in ramping model reduce delays. So the result shows good performance of the models in reducing costs and delay.