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A markov decision process model for airline meal provisioning Goto, Jason Hidekazu
Abstract
An airline caterer seeks to provide a meal quantity for each flight that closely matches final on-board passenger load. Faced with preparation lead-time, the caterer must estimate required meal quantities well in advance of departure. Passenger load may vary considerably during this lead-time, thus, adjustments are often required as more information becomes available. In this thesis, we model the meal ordering processes at Canadian Airlines as a finite-horizon Markov decision process. The model generates policies that show the caterer how to adjust meal quantities at each decision point to minimize ordering costs. We evaluate the performance achieved with the optimal policies by applying them to a holdout dataset, and compare the results to those observed in actual practice. Next, we use the model to observe the multi-objective problem of excess meal provisioning and short meal provisioning, and estimate the cost of achieving high service levels. This thesis finds that current practice in meal ordering at Canadian Airlines often achieves performance close to that achieved with the minimum cost policies. Application of the model to a group of 40 flights yielded estimated savings of $4,500 per month, while reducing the number of short catered flights by 42%.
Item Metadata
Title |
A markov decision process model for airline meal provisioning
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
1999
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Description |
An airline caterer seeks to provide a meal quantity for each flight that closely matches final on-board
passenger load. Faced with preparation lead-time, the caterer must estimate required meal quantities well
in advance of departure. Passenger load may vary considerably during this lead-time, thus, adjustments
are often required as more information becomes available.
In this thesis, we model the meal ordering processes at Canadian Airlines as a finite-horizon Markov
decision process. The model generates policies that show the caterer how to adjust meal quantities at
each decision point to minimize ordering costs. We evaluate the performance achieved with the optimal
policies by applying them to a holdout dataset, and compare the results to those observed in actual
practice. Next, we use the model to observe the multi-objective problem of excess meal provisioning and
short meal provisioning, and estimate the cost of achieving high service levels.
This thesis finds that current practice in meal ordering at Canadian Airlines often achieves performance
close to that achieved with the minimum cost policies. Application of the model to a group of 40 flights
yielded estimated savings of $4,500 per month, while reducing the number of short catered flights by
42%.
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Extent |
7835908 bytes
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Genre | |
Type | |
File Format |
application/pdf
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Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-06-17
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0089096
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
1999-05
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.