I'm in love /w this post! Not only is it informative but it clearly expresses the differences between decision making in real-world scenarios and delving deep into the data for an 'on-paper' optimal decision.
Optimization, e.g., from
operations research can
at times make a good contribution,
but such work is not always easy, and
typically the first challenging
step is problem formulation
where address considerations such
as I listed.
Indeed, at one point I was starting
to address the fleet scheduling
problem with integer linear programming
set covering, talking with
G. Nemhauser, now at Georgia Tech,
then at Cornell, etc. With
current software and computers,
what I was trying to do, for just
the 33 Falcon airplanes and 90 US
cities, should be nicely easy to do.
Another problem, though, could
be the mix of aircraft types:
Early on FAA and CAB rules boiled
down to the Dassault DA-20 Fanjet
Falcon with Fred's cargo modifications.
Why? Because, e.g., wanting to be
able to operate both airplanes and trucks,
FedEx was flying
as an unscheduled air-taxi,
maybe intended for little Mom and Pop
operations, but then could
not fly planes with max gross
takeoff weight (GTOW) over 25,000 pounds.
Fred went to Congress and got his
28,660 GTOW approved as an exception.
Later Alfred Kahn deregulated
airfreight and, thus, let
FedEx fly nearly anything
they wanted. At that point,
there would be an issue of
what mix of airplanes?
But that was after I had
gone for my Ph.D.
