Technical presentation: Evaluating Systemic Crew Risk and Operational Readiness Across Scheduling, Fatigue, and Crew Logistics

by Daniel Melendez

The future of crew management depends on understanding how scheduling decisions, fatigue exposure, crew accommodation, and operational efficiency interact as a single system. Many organizations optimize these elements independently, unintentionally masking systemic risks that only emerge during disruption or sustained operational pressure.
This presentation introduces a system-level evaluation approach that combines operations research, fatigue risk principles, and AI-based data analysis to assess crew risk and operational readiness end to end—from roster construction and duty sequencing to recovery opportunities, accommodation constraints, and disruption recovery.
The session demonstrates how these methods provide clear visibility into hidden systemic risks, enable a defensible risk and readiness score, and clarify where AI strengthens decision-making versus where it can introduce new risk if misapplied. Attendees will gain a decision-grade view of what degrades if nothing changes, supporting informed choices to ignore, patch, or intervene.

Sponsor presentation

Sponsor presentation

Technical presentation: From Combinatorial Search to Sequential Validation: Achieving Real-Time Assignment in Preferential Bidding Systems

by Vigith Kartha

Traditional airline PBS is NP-hard, requiring slow Branch-and-Price combinatorial search and resulting in opaque, batch-oriented bidding and crew dissatisfaction. This paper proposes a shift to a List-Based, Sequential Validation Assignment. By converting generic rules into a pre-sorted pairing list, the algorithm bypasses the time-consuming Pricing Problem of Column Generation. This breakthrough achieves speeds that make Interactive PBS (IPBS) operationally feasible, enabling continuous feedback. IPBS maximizes transparency, empowers crew to adjust bids, and directly enhances crew satisfaction. This List-Based approach advocates for a new standard in operational efficiency.