>then the problem could be simplified to getting every plain and every crew home to where they would spend the night under a normal schedule. I'm confused, may

>then the problem could be simplified to getting every plain and every crew home to where they would spend the night under a normal schedule. I'm confused, maybe my calibration of the scale involved here is wrong, but how do you not see this process taking days? Even if you had perfect information of where all the planes and crews were and where they should be, just coordinating with various airports to schedule the flights would take days; and that's assuming every plane is (1) flying empty, (2) fueled and (3) isn't carrying any passenger luggage.