A Stochastic Approximation Algorithm to Compute Bid Prices for Joint Capacity Allocation and Overbooking Over an Airline Network
By Sumit Kunnumkal, Huseyin Topaloglu
Naval Research Logistics Quarterly | April 2011
DOI
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/nav.20448
Citation
Kunnumkal, Sumit., Topaloglu, Huseyin. A Stochastic Approximation Algorithm to Compute Bid Prices for Joint Capacity Allocation and Overbooking Over an Airline Network Naval Research Logistics Quarterly onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/nav.20448.
Copyright
Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, 2011
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Abstract
In this paper, we develop a stochastic approximation algorithm to find good bid price policies for the joint capacity allocation and overbooking problem over an airline network. Our approach is based on visualizing the total expected profit as a function of the bid prices and searching for a good set of bid prices by using the stochastic gradients of the total expected profit function. We show that the total expected profit function that we use is differentiable with respect to the bid prices and derive a simple expression that can be used to compute its stochastic gradients. We show that the iterates of our stochastic approximation algorithm converge to a stationary point of the total expected profit function with probability 1. Our computational experiments indicate that the bid prices computed by our approach perform significantly better than those computed by standard benchmark strategies and the performance of our approach is relatively insensitive to the frequency with which we recompute the bid prices over the planning horizon.

Sumit Kunnumkal is a Professor and Area Leader of Operations Management at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He holds a PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University. He received his MS in Transportation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.Tech in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Professor Kunnumkal has previously taught at the Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, and has held visiting positions at the Singapore University of Technology and Design and Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His research interests lie in the areas of pricing and revenue management, retail operations, assortment planning, and approximate dynamic programming.

At ISB, he has taught in the PGP programme, the Fellow programme, and various Advanced Management and Executive Education programmes.

Sumit Kunnumkal
Sumit Kunnumkal