Disruption Management in Airline Operations Control: Designing a Multi-Agent System with a GAIA based Methodology

Abstract

Through operations control mechanisms an airline company monitors all the flights checking if they follow the schedule that was previously defined by other areas of the company. Some problems may arise during this stage related with crew members, aircrafts and passengers. The Airline Operations Control Centre (AOCC) includes teams of experts specialized in solving the above problems, seeking for solutions that minimize the negative impact on passengers and, at the same time, minimizing the operational costs. This book proposes a Multi-Agent System (MAS) that represents the AOCC allowing the airline company to take faster and better decisions when solving operational problems, taking into consideration the operational costs involved. It shows how such a system can be designed using an Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) methodology and presents the implementation of the system in a real airline company, using widely available tools. For airline professionals it shows how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help to solve such a critical problem. For students and AI/AOSE researchers shows the rationale behind the development of a real-world MAS.