Alex Cruz, the Chairman and CEO of British Airways is confirmed as the Keynote Speaker at the Annual Symposium. Alex will be speaking at 8:30 am on Wednesday, October 4.

Alex began his professional career at American Airlines Decision Technologies in 1995, spending half his 10 years at the group with its travel technology arm, Sabre, in London, working with a range of European airlines. In 2000, he became a partner at Arthur D Little before setting up his own aviation consulting firm in 2002. In 2005, he joined Accenture as its head of aviation. In 2006 he founded Clickair, a Barcelona-based airline, merging the airline with Vueling in 2009 and becoming Vueling’s Chairman and CEO. Vueling was acquired by International Airline Group (IAG) in 2013, with Alex joining the IAG Management Committee. In April 2016, Alex was appointed Chairman and CEO of British Airways.

He is also a visiting lecturer at the IESE Business School in Madrid and the ESADE Business & Law School in Barcelona.

Alex is 50 years old and originally from Bilbao in Spain. He has a degree in industrial engineering from Central Michigan University, an MSc from the Ohio State University, and Business Management & Administration degree from the Cox School of Business in Dallas. He is married with four children and lives in London.

For more information on the Symposium, held this year from October 2-6 in London, England, visit the meeting website at 57th Annual Symposium.

Abstracts for the upcoming Annual Symposium in London are available on the Technical Program Abstracts page. 

As always, this year's Symposium will offer the latest innovation in airline operations research. Various topics to be discussed include airline operations, airline strategy, cargo logistics, crew scheduling, e-commerce, information technology, OR management, revenue management, robust planning, and scheduling planning. Representatives from airlines, air transport associations, universities, industrial research labs, and consultants will discuss new ideas and present technical papers. The conference includes a vendor program for you to review the latest products. Come and share with us your ideas, thoughts, current trends, philosophies, and latest technological advances on any of the above or related topics.

For more information on the Symposium, visit the 57th Annual Symposium website.

The new 2018-2020 AGIFORS Council was recently elected. Their term officially begins at the end of Annual Symposium, which will be held in London from October 2-6. 

Returning to the Council are:

• Anne Jan Beeks, Air France/KLM
• David Foster, Delta Air Lines
• Eric Ruhlin, United Airlines
• Laurie Garrows, Georgia Institute of Technology (Past President)
• Semi Gabateni, Amadeus

Newly elected to the council are:

• John-Paul Clarke, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Jonas Rauch, Deutsche Lufthansa
• Richard Cleaz, Air Canada

The positions on the council, including President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Symposium Chair, Symposium Technical Chair, Membership Secretary, Communications Officer, and Publication Officer, will be decided during the first Council meeting on October 6. In addition, at that time, the new president may appoint additional members to the council to provide necessary services in the best interest of the organization.

The AGIFORS Annual Symposium will be hosted this year by British Airways from the 2nd through the 6th of October 2017.

The AGIFORS Symposium is a unique forum to share the recent developments in airline operations research and analytics, as well as connect with colleagues in the industry. Among the various topics to be discussed are airline operations, airline strategy, cargo logistics, crew scheduling, e-commerce, information technology, OR management, revenue management, robust planning, and scheduling planning. Representatives from airlines, air transport associations, universities, industrial research labs, and consultants will discuss new ideas and present technical papers.

If you are interested in giving a technical presentation at the annual symposium, please contact Semi Gabteni at semi.gabteni@amadeus.com or complete the online submission form.

Submissions are invited for the 2017 Anna Valicek graduate student paper award competition sponsored by the Airline Group of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (AGIFORS). The Anna Valicek award recognizes original and innovative research in the application of operations research to airline and/or airline related business problems. The award honors the late Anna Valicek who served for many years as a member of the AGIFORS council. Up to two finalists will be selected and will receive air transportation, accommodations, and registration fees to attend the Annual Symposium to be held in London, United Kingdom, to present their work. The winner will be awarded a silver medal and a U.S. $2,500 honorarium. The other finalist will be awarded a bronze medal and a U.S. $1,000 honorarium.

The following criteria will be used in judging the candidate papers:

• fundamental contribution and originality of the ideas or methods
  
• practical importance or applicability in solving important real problems
  
• methodological content and appropriateness of methods used in analysis
  
• clarity and excellence of the exposition
  

To be eligible, the applicant must:

• have written the paper while pursuing a graduate degree, specifically either a master of science, master of business administration, or doctoral degree with a research thesis in the area of operations research, engineering systems, air transportation or management science
• be the major contributor of the paper
• have been a registered student on or after June 1, 2016

To be considered, the following should be submitted:

• a paper written in English with a maximum of 15,000 words. The document format must be Microsoft Word or Acrobat PDF
  
• an abstract with a maximum of 300 words
  
• the resume of the applicant
  

In addition, the applicant is expected (to be likely able) to attend the coming annual symposium to present her/his work. Interacting with the AGIFORS symposium participants is considered an important part of the Anna Valicek competition, and high priority will be given in selecting finalists who are able to commit to attending the Annual Symposium.

Submissions for the 2017 Anna Valicek Award will close on June 9, 2017, 18:00 EDT. There will be no deadline extension.

Submissions should be sent to valicekaward@agifors.org.

Mirela Stojkovic

Vice President, AGIFORS

Chair, Anna Valicek Award Committee

valicekaward@agifors.org

It is with profound sadness that we announce that one of our Fellows, Armando Silva, passed away April 23rd. 

Armando was a founding member of American Airlines Decision Technologies (AADT) in the late 1980‘s and rose up the ranks to eventually become the Managing Director of Operations Research at AA until his retirement in 2012. He was influential in the early days of applying OR to customer loyalty, pricing, sales, and revenue management. Armando made significant contributions to AGIFORS as long-time chair of the OR Manager’s Study Group and was a continuous and active participant in AGIFORS from the late 1990s until his retirement in 2012. He also supported many of his staff as speakers and contributors to AGIFORS over the years.

Armando influenced dozens of colleagues through his mentoring and will always be remembered for his sense of humor and ability to diffuse tension and make work “fun.” He will be sorely missed by his family, friends and the entire airline OR community.

This year's Annual Symposium will be held in London hosted by British Airways. The event will most likely be held in October. Exact dates along with details such as venue, official hotel, etc. will be announced in this space as soon as we are able.

Registration has now opened for the AGIFORS Crew Management Study Group meeting 2017.

This year South African Airways has kindly offered to be the local hosts. The conference has been scheduled for May 2nd – 5th 2017 and will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The venue of the conference will be the Peermont Metcourt Hotel.

The official conference website with additional information on delegate registration, hotel reservations, visa requirements, and the technical program can be found at: http://www.agifors.org/crew-management-meeting-2017.

Registration fees are:

• USD 300 for Airline representatives and for students and faculty members of recognized academic institutions
• USD 600 for full-time employee of an established aircraft manufacturer, air traffic control agency, airport authority, government agency, or non-profit organization that supports the airline industry. Employees must not work for a subsidiary, affiliate, associate, division or other entity that markets products or services to the airline industry
• USD 900 for anyone employed by a company (or subsidiary, affiliate or division) that actively markets and sells information technology (IT) products or professional services (including any form of consulting, strategy, integration, implementation, or support) to the airline industry.

The main topic for this meeting will be everything surrounding crew management. This includes amongst other things Fatigue Risk Management, Robustness, Manpower planning, Leave assignment, Training, Pairing, Rostering, Tracking, Bidding, and many more topics.

A meeting like this is nothing without content. And the content should come from you. For that reason I would hereby request if you would consider submitting a technical presentation for the conference also. So please, share with us your ideas, thoughts, practical innovations, current trends, case studies, philosophies, and latest advances on the topics which are relevant to you. 

The following are requirements for participation in the technical program:

• A 30-45 minute presentation
• Willingness to comply with requests for additional information and clarification on abstract and/or presentation material
• Willingness to tailor a presentation for the AGIFORS Crew Management audience (of which a large percentage are airline crew managers and operations research practitioners) and to accept directions from the selection committee in doing this
• No live demo’s (screenshots are fine insofar as they illustrate or help visualize concepts or demonstrate results)
• Limited reference to products

The policy of AGIFORS for all their meetings are to have the registration fee for Airline staff and Academics as low as possible. The philosophy behind this is that academics are likely to enter new lines of thought into our field, and having a strong presence by airlines brings great value to both the vendors and the airlines.

It would therefore be great if Inform could this year be one of our sponsors. There are three sponsorship options available:

Gold Level Sponsorship (USD 4000) includes the following:

1. Vendor booth in premium location

2. Free accommodation in one Junior Suite for up to 4 nights

3. Recognition throughout the conference and on the conference web site

4. Banner/signage in the Proceedings Hall

5. Vendor presentation time of 15 minutes.

Silver Level Sponsorship (USD 2000) includes the following:

1. Vendor Booth

2. One room upgrade for up to 4 nights

3. Recognition on the conference web site

4. Banner/signage in the Proceedings Hall

5. Vendor presentation time of 15 minutes.

Bronze Level Sponsorship (USD 1000) includes the following:

1. Recognition on the conference web site

2. Banner/signage in the Proceedings Hall

3. Vendor presentation time of 15 minutes.

My co-hosts from SAA and I are truly looking forward to welcoming you in Johannesburg and we will do whatever is in our power to make your attendance a memorable one.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Marcel Sol at msol@qatarairways.com.qa

2017 AGIFORS AIRLINE OPERATIONS - TECHNICAL PROGRAM

May 22-25, Athens, Greece

Call for Presentations!

Come and share with us your ideas, practical innovations, current trends, case studies, strategies, and latest advances on the topics that matter most to you.

You spoke again – We listened! Based on participant feedback and recent survey results, there is a particularly high level of interest in the following areas

·         Leveraging Big Data, visualization, and machine learning in airline operations

·         Disruption management and aircraft and schedule recovery

·         Dependability/on-time performance/punctuality

·         Operational simulations

·         Balancing operational robustness and efficiency

·         Coordination and feedback between schedule planning and operations

·         Customer-centric operations

·         Aircraft turn management

·         Effective Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) for operations

·         Organizational design and process flow for Operation Control Centers

·         Operational decision making under uncertainty

·         Airline Operations and Social Media/Mobile devices

As always, we will invite high-quality talks from all relevant areas of airline operations, including

·         Disruption Management (simulation, solution approaches, visualization, challenges, case-studies, lessons learned)

·         Airline Operations Control (effective integration, coordination, processes)

·         Delay cost modeling and management

·         Post-operations analysis and feedback

·         Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) initiatives for airport and airspace

·         Airport Operations – Ground Control (taxi management, deicing, etc.)

·         Air Traffic Control/Management

·         Operational Coordination during disruptions both at the station/network level and at the mainline/regional carrier level

If you are interested in presenting at the airline operations conference in Athens, please complete the on-line submission form and submit it directly via the web at the official conference website,   http://www.agifors.org/AO2017