Freight handling personnel scheduling at air cargo terminals

More than ever before, the airline industry must manage its operations very carefully if it is to adapt to the changes in its environment. One important planning problem is the scheduling of freight handling employees at air cargo terminals. Indeed this area is particularly critical for achieving cost reductions while maintaining customer service levels. This paper presents a new model and an appropriate solution approach for the work-scheduling problem. In particular, a demand leveling procedure is introduced to take advantage of the flexibility that is often encountered in such problems. Experimental results obtained with actual data from a major airline are also presented.