After careful review, we have decided to postpone two of our upcoming Study Group Meetings:
• Crew Management
• Revenue Management

These meetings were scheduled to take place next month in Dubai and Doha. Given the ongoing conflict in the region and the uncertain geopolitical situation, we are not comfortable proceeding as planned.

We are currently evaluating several options, including:

• Rescheduling the meetings for later in the year
• Hosting them in an alternative location
• Hosting them as virtual meetings
• Cancelling the events altogether

We will share further updates and decisions as soon as they are finalized.

Please note that the Airline Operations and Aircraft Maintenance meetings in Barcelona, Spain will proceed as scheduled.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

The AGIFORS Council has named three distinguished individuals as 2025 AGIFORS Fellows—one of the highest professional honors in our field. This prestigious recognition is reserved for those who have demonstrated exceptional achievements in applying operations research to air transportation, and who have made significant, long-standing contributions to the AGIFORS community through active participation and leadership.

·          Dr. John-Paul Clarke holds the Ernest Cockrell, Jr. Memorial Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He is honored for his pioneering work in robust scheduling, integrated recovery, and the interplay between airline operations and air traffic management. A long-serving Council member, Dr. Clarke has been a prolific contributor and presenter at study group meetings and annual symposia.

·          Dr. Thomas Fiig, Director Chief Scientist at Amadeus, is recognized for his influential research in revenue management. His work spans forecasting accuracy, simplified fare structure optimization, offer optimization, and dynamic pricing. A regular presence at revenue management study group meetings and symposia, Dr. Fiig has presented over 27 papers, many of which have received Best Presentation awards.

·          Dr. Stefan E. Karisch, Director of Air Science & Technology at Amazon, is celebrated for advancing optimization-based aircraft operations planning and scheduling. A long-time AGIFORS member, he has served as both Council President and Vice President, and notably led the planning committee for the 50th Annual AGIFORS Symposium held in Nice in 2010.

Our three new Distinguished Members will be officially recognized at the Gala Dinner at this year's Symposium in London.

Submissions are invited for the 2025 Ken Wang Scholars Program of the Airline Group of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (AGIFORS). The deadline to submit the applications is July 1^st, 2025, 18:00 EDT. Those submitting applications who are selected will receive fully paid registration for the upcoming AGIFORS Annual Symposium in London, UK!

More details available on the Ken Wang application page!

The 2025 Ken Wang Scholars Program now accepts applications!

The Ken Wang Program recognizes graduate students early in their academic programs (first or second year) who are interested in academic research in applications of operations research in various domains in the airline industry.

Award recipients receive a fully paid registration for the Annual Symposium held in the Fall (dates and location to be announced soon!), and get a chance to meet senior researchers and practitioners working on airline industry problems.

Applications close on July 1, 2025 -- see the application page for more details.

The 2025 Anna Valicek Award Competition is now open!

The AGIFORS’ Anna Valicek Award Competition is destined to recognize graduate students and recent PhD graduates conducting original and innovative research in the application of operations research to airline and/or airline related business problems. We invite you to submit your research paper before June 1^st, 2025!

Refer to the Anna Valicek page for more details on the criteria and eligibility.

The 64^th AGIFORS Annual Symposium at the Grand Cayman is now a wrap -- and we are happy to announce the winners of this year's awards.

For the Technical Program:

• Pascale Batchoun (Air Canada) received the Best Presentation Award for her presentation on "Predicting a Schedule's OTP and How that Impacts Schedule Build"
• Sergey Shebalov (Sabre) received the Best Innovation Award for his work on "Classless Revenue Management"

In the Anna Valicek Competition:

• Iordanis Tseremoglou (Delft University of Technology) won the Silver Anna Valicek Medal for "Condition-Based Maintenance scheduling of an aircraft fleet under partial observability: A Deep Reinforcement Learning approach"
• Matıas Villafranca (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) won the Bronze Anna Valicek Medal for "Aircraft maintenance scheduling under uncertain task processing time"

We congratulate the winners and thank everyone who contributed to the Technical Program of the Symposium. The abstracts of the presentations can be found here.

We still have a few slots open for presentations in the Technical Program at this year's Annual Symposium, hosted by Cayman Airways at the Grand Cayman, October 27-31.

Submit your abstract here by September 27: we will fill them on a first-come, first-serve basis, so don't delay submitting to avoid disappointment!

The Technical Program provides a unique platform for airline experts and decision makers to come together and exchange ideas on key industry challenges. The Symposium will feature recent advancements of analytical solutions in revenue management, disruption management, schedule recovery, crew recovery, workforce planning, and predictive maintenance.  Many of these features will feature advanced analytics methods, including machine learning and AI.  Experts come from airlines, air transport associations, universities, industrial research labs, consulting firms, and vendors.

From a total of 10 submitted articles, the 2024 Anna Valicek Award Committee has selected the two finalists for the 2024 Anna Valicek Award

• Iordanis Tseremoglou, Delft University of Technology: “Condition-Based Maintenance scheduling of an aircraft fleet under partial observability: A Deep Reinforcement Learning approach”

• Matías Villafranca, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile: “Aircraft maintenance scheduling under uncertain task processing time”

As finalists, they will present their work at the upcoming 2024 AGIFORS Symposium (please visit the Symposium page for more details). Then, the AGIFORS Council will select the winner of the 2024 Anna Valicek Award.

 

We are pleased to announce that the AGIFORS 64^th Annual Symposium will be hosted by Cayman Airways in the Grand Cayman October 27-31, 2024!

We are looking forward to having you join a packed 3.5-day technical program, with presentations on recent advancements in all key areas of the industry: operations, maintenance, revenue management, scheduling, crew management, and more - leveraging modern analytical techniques, machine learning and artificial intelligence!

In addition to the technical program, we are planning a range of social and networking events that will allow you to connect with colleagues, as well as with students participating in the Anna Valicek Award and Ken Wang Scholars Programs who have shown interest in the airline industry through academic work.  

Registration for the Symposium, and the call for papers will open by mid-August, so stay tuned for more details!

Event details can be found at the Symposium homepage, and here are more details if you would like to become a Sponsor!

AGIFORS is now welcoming applications for the 2024 Anna Valicek Award Competition and Ken Wang Scholars Program!

The two programs recognize students and recent graduates, whose interests or previous academic work is related to solving problems in the airline industry using operations research as well as other quantitative methods. We are welcoming applicants from all around the world, and we strongly encourage applications from those whose background is historically under-represented at AGIFORS. The deadline to apply is June 1, 2024.

For details on the two programs, refer to the Anna Valicek and Ken Wang Scholars page.