PONTIFEX (Planning Of Non-specific Transportation by an Intelligent Fleet EXpert) was a mid-1980s project that introduced a novel approach to complex aircraft fleet scheduling, partially funded by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

's Strategic Programme for R&D in Information Technology. Since the mathematical problems stemming from nontrivial fleet scheduling easily become computationally unsolvable, the PONTIFEX idea consisted in a seamless merge of

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for per ...

and

heuristic A heuristic or heuristic technique (''problem solving'', '' mental shortcut'', ''rule of thumb'') is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless ...

knowledge embedded in rules.M.Cini, P. Magrassi, "A Knowledge-Based Decision Support System For Routing And Scheduling", Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference On Expert Systems And The Leading Edge In Production And Operations Management, Hilton Head Island, SC, USA, Karwan Sweigart Publishers, 1989 The system, based on domain knowledge collected from airliners

Alitalia Alitalia - Società Aerea Italiana S.p.A., operating as Alitalia (), was an Italian airline which was once the flag carrier and largest airline of Italy. The company had its head office in Fiumicino, in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital. ...

KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, or simply KLM (an abbreviation for their official name Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V. , ),

Swissair Swissair (German language, German: Schweizerische Luftverkehr-AG; French language, French: S.A. Suisse pour la Navigation Aérienne, stylised as swissair) was the Flag carrier, national airline of Switzerland between its founding in 1931 and ban ...

, and

TAP Portugal TAP Air Portugal is the flag carrier of Portugal, headquartered at Lisbon Airport which also serves as its hub. TAP – Transportes Aéreos Portugueses – has been a member of the Star Alliance since 2005 and operates on average 2,500 flights ...

, was first adopted by Swissair and Alitalia in the late 1980s, then also by the Italian railroad national operator, for their cargo division. It was still in use .

References

{{Reflist Mathematical modeling