Application of analytic hierarchy process in multi-objective mixed integer programming for airlift capacity planning

The analytic hierarchy process is combined with multi-objective mixed integer programming to determine the optimal allocation of a limited number of aircraft among a group of airlift users with varying levels of priority and length of usage. Canadian Forces airlift planners typically encounter such a capacity planning problem. The solution to this problem requires the constrained assignment of n variable length missions (tasks) integrating hundreds of airlift requests from several users with many priorities to m airframes (parallel machines).