I've been building models that handle scenario's that take nearly 25 seconds for Excel to recompute,. Now-a-days, the traveling salesman problem, even over 100k pax a day, is a breeze for modern systems. I used a Blaze Business Rules Engine that was essentially built for it.. ..but I never tried it. In the example of making a connection, it becomes a constraint. The customer has to be in JFK by "X" time. Virtually everything in the model is a constraint, and you'd simply look for the lowest cost solution. Right now, airlines are still running with 60's models where the constraints of staff and crew (and scheduling) are such that they essentially drive the modern airline schedule. Then the revenue management guys go price the routes to try and fill the planes. After the plane flies, the airline then counts it's pennies and determines if it made money. More often than not ever since about 1970, they haven't. I was just thinking there had to be a better way. (Back to my day job.) Matthew On Monday, May 19, 2003, at 12:17 PM, Kenton A. Hoover wrote: > It would also make it impossible to make connections, or at least > close to it. > So, while you could fly from SFO to JFK, if you had to connect from > there to > FRA or LHR, you might discover you have another 24 hours to wait. > > Though with the new range of some of the 737- and 777-s, perhaps we'll > all just > by flying SMF - LHR direct soon? > > --On Monday, May 19, 2003 9.52 -0700 John Kurtzke <kurtzke@xxxxxx> > wrote: > >> Actually, your idea is interesting, but I think it would make the >> Travelling Salesman Problem seem easy (A salesman must visit n cities. >> What is the most efficient routing?) >> >> john >> >> On Fri, 16 May 2003, Matthew Montano wrote: >> >>> I am wondering if anyone has ever tried to run an airline where you >>> don't schedule specific flights at specific times? > > > -- > | Kenton A. Hoover / Private Citizen / shibumi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx | >