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

The archive of presentations is now available for Members in the member area.

This year we have 75 people (and counting) from 40 organizations (airline, academic and industry) joining us. Details are on the 56th Symposium Attendees page.

Join us at the SWIM Workshop on 10 October 2016 to participate in a one-of-a-kind open forum involving Airlines, ANSPs, data aggregators as well as research & academia – all coming together to collectively brainstorm on how to make the most out of SWIM as it gains momentum on a global scale.

Now that more real-time data is becoming available (for free) via SWIM, it is time to explore what value this data can provide to airlines. The live SWIM feeds are well-positioned to complement existing data used by airlines or provide faster/cheaper ways of getting that same data – in both cases providing airlines opportunities not just for improvement and efficiency but more importantly for innovation.

The workshop is structured in 3 parts:

(1) Part 1: Sets the stage by providing a summary of the state of the art in SWIM from the perspectives of ANSPs, Airlines and vendors.

(2) Part 2: Showcases SWIM implementation success stories presented by invited speakers from the industry

(3) Part 3: Focuses on the future opportunities of leveraging SWIM in a moderated discussion with participants and on brainstorming necessary steps to be taken by all stakeholders to get the most out of SWIM.

Who will benefit?

- Airlines

- ANSPs

- Data aggregators

- Application providers/system integrators

- Research & Academia

What topics will be covered?

- SWIM State of the Art

- Success stories of using SWIM

- Innovation driven by SWIM

- Use cases for using SWIM to do things differently or more efficiently

- Roadmap for making the most out of SWIM

We have a full schedule of papers from a wide range of airline OR and analytics topics. We have posted the full list along with abstracts at: Technical Program

The two finalists that will be presenting their research at the 56th Annual Symposium are:

• Marcella Sama, Roma Tre University: Metaheuristics for efficient aircraft scheduling and re-routing at busy terminal control areas

• Michael Wittman, MIT: Customized Offers in Airline Revenue Management

Many thanks go to everyone who submitted a paper to the competition. You can still read all the submissions at Current Competition.