Allocate Route and Fare-Class Tickets Let's say that FOPA advises the board to make Kansas City a
Question:
Allocate Route and Fare-Class Tickets
Let's say that FOPA advises the board to make Kansas City a hub that forms a local network covering: Saltlake City, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta. This local network is serviced by two
planes:
1. Airbus A220-100 with a total seating capacity of 135 passengers
2. Airbus A320 with total seating capacity of 150 passengers
Since Kansas City is the hub for this network, every destination must be served non-stop to and from Kansas. In order to achieve this goal in an efficient manner the two planes are parked overnight at Saltlake City and Atlanta (which might serve as hubs for other regions). Therefore each morning the Saltlake City based plane flies to Dallas with a stopover at Kansas City and the Atlanta based plane flies towards Chicago also stopping over at Kansas City. The diagram below illustrates the logistics of this arrangement. BAL sells two ticket types: basic and regular coach. The basic fare restricts carry on, does not allow passengers to select their seat in advance, and does not allow for any changes to be made to the itinerary. Regular coach ticket holders can select their seats in advance, can bring one carry on item onboard, can change their ticket free of charge once (and pay the ticket price difference if larger than zero), and receive a complimentary beverage upon boarding the plane. Every day, the pricing engine (that you do not have to develop as part of this use case) spits out a set of prices and expected demand for all future flight days in a 6 month time window, for each fare class and destination.
FOPA is tasked with developing an algorithm that returns the allocated number of seats for each class and itinerary. The algorithm output is used by ticket agents and queried by various online vendors that sell tickets on BAL's behalf.
To summarize, FOPA must:
1. Determine how many seats to allocate to each route (you can check that total demand exceeds capacity) with the goal to maximize revenue. Model output should contain metrics used by agents or travel site engines that assist in guiding whether tickets should still be allocated if full allocated capacity is reached for a given route and class
2. Advise the board at which location to station the A220 and A320 (one in Saltlake, the other in Atlanta)
Expert Answer:
