Title: Development of efficient combinatorial auction mechanism for airport slot allocation

Authors: Shankar Vinay Arul, Angappa Gunasekaran, S.P. Nachiappan, B. Ramasamy

Addresses: Department of Mechatronics, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai – 625015, India. ' Department of Decision and Information Sciences, Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, 285, Old Westport Road, North Dartmouth, MA 02747–2300, USA. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai – 625015, India. ' Department of Mechatronics, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai – 625015, India

Abstract: The current allocation of slots in congested airports is fraught with deficiencies because of the liberalisation of air transportation undertaken all over the world. The existing grandfather rights rule is slowly being replaced with auctions. In the airport slot allocation problem, in order to effectively auction the slots, multiple-item auctions are employed. It is in this aspect that combinatorial auctions are employed, as they are the most efficacious in dealing with complimentarity. Since the existing mechanisms are more inclined towards maximising the auctioneer|s profit – with the monetary issue being the only concern – they lead to biased allocations. Therefore, this paper develops a model and proposes a mechanism that could overcome the shortcomings of the existing auctioning procedures by incorporating the concepts of welfare issues with due consideration given to the flight capacity to effectively allot the slots.

Keywords: slots; resource allocation; NP hard; combinatorial auctions; airport slot allocation; biased allocations; welfare issues; flight capacity; airline industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2007.013464

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2007 Vol.3 No.4, pp.427 - 443

Published online: 30 Apr 2007 *

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