[_yb2s]

I find it hard to believe that compute power is the limitation here… something like simulated annealing would probably provide a reasonable, even if far from optimal solution on a regular PC. I imagine the feeding all of the data and constraints in is a bigger issue, when there is a lot of confusion and disorganization.

[shagie]

It would, and that's likely what they're using - but it isn't perfect.

When it becomes non-perfect and you get a number of events that throw it off (like storms causing certain legs from not getting completed to move the plane to the proper spot and holidays causing disproportionate load in certain parts of the network), then everything gets messy.

[greesil]

FTA: "In the event of a disruption you call scheduling and they manually adjust you"

Maybe the airline industry needs AlphaScheduler deep learning with monte carlo tree search. Or stimulated annealing. These cheap short sighted stuffed suits with MBAs who think that a fat tail refers to some part of the airplane.

[_yb2s]

It doesn’t seem like that, they have canceled virtually all flights to and from airports unaffected by storms. They seem to have huge numbers of planes and flight crews ready to go that are just sitting idle.