Method for rescheduling flights affected by a disruption and an airline operations control system and controller

A controller in communication with a database containing data related to a scheduled origination and a scheduled destination for each of a set of passengers scheduled on aircraft flights, and having software configured to

• access and retrieve the data;
• generate a passenger connection network of connections between the scheduled origination and the scheduled destination for a subset of the set of passengers wherein the connections include at least one connecting flight that is not direct between the scheduled origination and the scheduled destination, wherein the at least one connecting flight has a first projected departure time;
• create at least one copy of the at least one connecting flight having a second projected departure time later than the first projected departure time;
• add connections to the passenger connection network between the scheduled origination and the scheduled destination for the subset wherein the added connections include the at least one copy of the at least one connecting flight;
• apply at least one criterion to the passenger connection network with the added connections;
• and
• reschedule the at least one connecting flight to at least one second projected departure time based on the at least one criterion.

A method of rescheduling flights, comprising:

• accessing from a memory storing flight origination and flight destination data for each of a set of airline passengers;
• generating a flight mapping model by mapping connections between the flight origination data and the flight destination data in a flight modeling module;
• generating a passenger flight connection simulation model based on the flight mapping model, including (i) a plurality of flight legs representative of scheduled flights, (ii) a plurality of nodes for associating the passenger with the flight legs, and (iii) a plurality of arcs, each arc connecting two or more of the nodes;
• update a flight schedule for at least a subset of rescheduled flights based on the passenger flight connection simulation model;
• and
• flying the at least a subset of reschedule flights in accordance with the updated flight schedule.