A Multi-Pass Construction Heuristic for the Aggregated Airlift Problem

The Air Force has over 26,000 Airmen deployed from over 80 military installations to Forward Operating Locations (FOLs) in over 21 countries providing capabilities for air mobility and refueling, precision strike, close air support, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance among others. Airmen are rotated in and out of these deployed positions every 120 days as part of the AEF system. Prior to January 2005, small groups of deploying personnel made their way via ad hoc methods providing little to no visibility to planners and creating a backlog of personnel at the Points of Debarkation (PODs) where deploying airmen often waited up to 5 days before receiving tactical airlift to their FOLs.