A mathematical programming model for air traffic flow management with dynamic selection of the airspace configuration

In this thesis we present a new integer linear programming model for air traffic flow management. The goal of the model is to minimize the cost of flight delays. The introduction provides an overview of the air traffic flow management problem. The problem is addressed through a combination of actions such as ground-holding, airborne-holding, speed control and choice of the most appropriate configuration of the airspace. The configuration may be changed over time, so that the last action implies dynamism of the airspace configuration and allows controllers to monitor the flow of traffic more effectively. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, the model we present in this thesis is the first one that exploits the use of dynamic airspace configurations. The new model is based on Integer Linear Programming formulation and it is compared to one state-of-the-art formulation using a single fixed configuration. Different model parameter settings are analysed, showing significant improvement in terms of reduced delays and related costs. Furthermore, theoretical considerations regarding the study of the linear relaxation of the new model are described. Finally, implementation details are provided.