ABSTRACT
The hub-and-spoke system has resulted in a large volume of baggage and passengers transferring between flights. Assigning arriving flights to airport gates is therefore an important issue in daily operations of an airline. Although the costs of these activities are generally small portions of the overall airline operation costs, they have a major impact on maintaining the efficiency of flight schedules and passenger satisfaction. Some of the factors that impact the assignment of gates to arriving flights include aircraft size, passenger walking distances, baggage transfer, ramp congestion, aircraft rotation, and aircraft service requirements (Gu and Chung 1999).
