Every day, ground services at an airport provide services for the airlines. These are mission critical services with specific turnaround times tied to planned arrivals and departures. Living up to agreed quality and performance levels is a daily challenge, both in terms of economics and in terms of planning.

Timely performance is measured in terms of minimizing turnaround time and the delay of aircrafts, which involves a collection of dependent services that must be executed in a specific order. For example, an aircraft’s push-back from the gate can only be started when all other services are completed. An important limitation to note is that aircrafts cannot be fueled and catered at the same time.