Simheuristics for strategic workforce planning at a busy airport

Airport demand frequently exceeds capacity. An airport’s capacity bottleneck is often located in its runway system. Other times, it is elsewhere, including the terminal facilities. At one of the busiest UK airports, the subject of this study, the bottleneck is located in the passenger security hall, where staff are employed directly by the airport operator. This airport plans to restructure the current workforce’s overall size and types of contracts. Our work proposes a Simheuristic approach that utilizes current workforce data and demand forecasts for the upcoming season to adjust the contractual configurations systematically. We employ simulation to test the expected costs (vs flexibility needs) of the likely rosters that each contractual configuration will allow. Using the simulation results, the algorithm aims to identify the optimal contractual configuration to minimize costs while ensuring the adaptability required to address unforeseen changes in the flight schedule as each season is underway.