Instead of responding to each flight delay as if it were an isolated event, airlines should consider the likelihood of potential disruptions ahead, researchers report. They developed a new approach that allows airlines to respond to flight delays and cancellations while also incorporating information about likely disruptions later the same day.

Their model suggests this approach could reduce airline recovery costs by 1%-2%, potentially resulting in millions of dollars of savings a year, the researchers say.

Flight disruptions waste precious resources and cost airlines tens of billions of dollars a year, said study lead Lavanya Marla, a professor of industrial and enterprise systems engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Because most airports in the U.S. schedule flights to leave or depart every two minutes, delays at one or two major airports can propagate quickly through the system. While some timing buffers are built into the network to allow for minor delays, larger disruptions — for example, those stemming from a powerful weather system in one region of the country — tend to magnify problems across the network of airports as the day progresses.

Understanding these probabilities can help airlines respond to disruptions in a more realistic manner, Marla said.

«We are trying to introduce the idea that we should be reactive and proactive at the same time,» she said.

For example, an airplane that is behind schedule could use more fuel to fly faster to make its destination on time, Marla said.

Story Source: Materials provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau. Original written by Diana Yates. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.