Apply your knowledge of airline operations acquired over the last several modules to develop a simple flight schedule. The assignment is loosely based on the early years of current Frontier Airlines (there was an earlier Frontier Airlines). It requires some time to do well, so do not leave it until the last moment.
Frontier Airlines commenced operations on July 5, 1994. The new airline took advantage of three unique windows of opportunity:

• A major airline's dramatic downsizing of its Denver operations, leaving service gaps in various major markets;
• The construction of Denver International Airport, which replaced Denver's heavily congested Stapleton Airport; and
• The availability of several key executives from the former Frontier Airlines, who comprised a senior management team with long-term experience in the Denver market.

Frontier is an affordable fare airline providing service, in this sample scheduling problem, to 6 cities from its Denver hub employing a hub-and-spoke route system.
The table lists the cities served, airport code, mileage from DEN, block time (departure gate to arrival gate) to fly the route to/from DEN, and time zone with the time difference from Mountain Standard Time.

City	Airport Code	Mileage	Block Time	Time Zone
Chicago, IL (Midway Airport)	MDW	892	1:56	Central +1
Denver, CO	DEN	0	0	Mountain
Ft. Lauderdale, FL	FLL	1700	3:27	Eastern +2
Los Angeles, CA	LAX	860	1:52	Pacific -1
New York, NY (La Guardia)	LGA	1614	3:17	Eastern +2
Salt Lake City, UT	SLC	627	:59	Mountain
San Francisco, CA	SFO	964	2:04	Pacific -1

Assets and Facilities

Aircraft: 6 Boeing 737-300
Airport Gates: 3 at DEN, 1 at each spoke station

Constraints

Minimum ground time: 30 minutes at spokes, 45 minutes at DEN
Note: Ensure that for each morning originating flight, there is an evening terminating flight.
Construct a daily aircraft flow sheet attempting to maximize: 1) the city-pairs served; 2) departures at the desirable times - 0700 to 0900 and 1600 to 1800 local time; 3) passenger connections at the DEN; and 4) aircraft utilization. Not all of these goals can be accomplished; compromises are necessary.

US Map

Your flight schedule must be prepared in daily flow aircraft flow chart like that shown in Cook & Billig, chapter 5, the Figure labeled "Aircraft Flow Chart“. It is not necessary, however, to create the crew schedule, only the aircraft schedule shown at the top of the slide.
This flow chart was created in MS Excel, the application recommended for the assignment. If you prefer, it is acceptable to construct the schedule with some other software application or it may be drawn.

Important Points

In constructing your schedule, keep the following points in mind: 

1) Frontier Airlines operates a hub-and-spoke system with passenger connections in DEN, so your schedule should do so as well; 

2) Your schedule shows one day's operation; the same aircraft schedule will begin again the following morning; therefore, if you have an aircraft which ends the day in LGA, it must originate there the following morning. 

4) It is not necessary to consider aircraft maintenance requirements at DEN or spoke cities.