Analysis of the Potential for Delay Propagation in Passenger Airline Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the potential for delays to propagate in passenger airline networks. The motivation for this research is the need to better understand the relationship between the scheduling of aircraft and crew members, and the operational performance of such schedules. In particular, when carriers decide how to schedule these costly resources, the focus is primarily on achieving high levels of utilization. The resulting plans, however, often have little slack, limiting the schedule's ability to absorb disruption; instead, initial flight delays may propagate to delay subsequent flights as well. Understanding the relationship between planned schedules and delay propagation is a requisite precursor to developing tools for building more robust airline plans. In this paper, we investigate this relationship using flight data provided by two major U.S. carriers, one traditional hub-and-spoke and one “low-fare” carrier.