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A New Era for Crew Recovery at Continental Airlines

Department of Management Science and Information Systems, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
CALEB Technologies Corporation, 9130 Jollyville Road, Suite 100, Austin, Texas 78759
CALEB Technologies Corporation, 9130 Jollyville Road, Suite 100, Austin, Texas 78759
CALEB Technologies Corporation, 9130 Jollyville Road, Suite 100, Austin, Texas 78759
Continental Airlines, 1600 Smith Street, Houston, Texas 77002
yu{at}uts.cc.utexas.edu
mike.arguello{at}calebtech.com
mark.song{at}calebtech.com
sandy.mccowan{at}calebtech.com
awhite{at}coair.com

Airlines face schedule disruptions daily because of unexpected events, including inclement weather, aircraft mechanical problems, and crew unavailability. These disruptions can cause flight delays and cancellations. As a result, crews may not be in position to service their remaining scheduled flights. Airlines must reassign crews quickly to cover open flights and to return them to their original schedules in a cost-effective manner while honoring all government regulations, contractual obligations, and quality-of-life requirements. CALEB Technologies developed the CrewSolver decision-support system for Continental Airlines to generate globally optimal, or near optimal, crew-recovery solutions. Since its implementation, the system has dealt successfully with several high-profile events, including the December 2000 and March 2001 Nor'easter snowstorms, the June 2001 Houston flood, and most dramatically, the September 11th terrorist attacks. In each case, Continental recovered quickly and obtained overall benefits worth millions of dollars. Continental estimates that in 2001 the CrewSolver system helped it save approximately US $40 million for major disruptions only.

Key Words: Transportation: scheduling; personnel. Decision analysis: systems.

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