Optimization of operational aircraft maintenance routing with a hybrid Genetic–Compressed annealing algorithm

The Operational Aircraft Maintenance Routing Problem (OAMRP) has become one of the most concerning topics in the field of civil aviation transportation. This study treats remaining flight hours and remaining flight cycles as the key maintenance intervals. Beyond optimizing each resource individually, the more complex scenario where both constraints apply simultaneously is tackled. The objective is to minimize the total unutilized rate of aircraft maintenance resources across the entire fleet. This approach enables unified optimization of different aircraft types within the same fleet and effectively balances the utilization of both maintenance resources. A hybrid Genetic–Compressed Annealing (GA-CA) algorithm is proposed to solve this problem. Experimental analysis is conducted using real flight data, and the proposed approach is compared with the commercial solver CPLEX®, a GA and a CA. The results show that GA-CA can effectively solve the OAMRP and can obtain better solutions than CPLEX, GAs and CAs in a shorter time.