ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the problem of the aircraft-gate assignment which was defined with the introduction of gate walkways that connect passengers directly between the aircraft and the terminal area. Furthermore, gate assignment should consider minimizing the total operating cost related to baggage and cargo handling, and the aircraft taxi distance. In the past few decades, many optimization methods have been reported to improve the gate assignment operation at airport terminals. Robustness and punctuality are also considered in the gate assignment problem. At the planning level gate assignment should ensure that all flights can be accommodated by the gates available to the air carrier. Most commercial air carriers follow heuristic approaches to solve the gate assignment problem. In the past few decades, many optimization methods have been reported to improve the gate assignment operation at airport terminals. Yan and Chang propose a network model for gate assignment, in which the problem is formulated as a multi-commodity network flow problem.
