Case Study: Angel Flight West achieves optimized flight routing and increased pilot donations with AIMMS

Angel Flight West Optimizes Flight Routes For Children And Families With Special Needs When A Community And A Utility Come Together

Angel Flight West is a volunteer-driven nonprofit that arranges free, non‑emergency air travel for children and adults with serious medical conditions, supported by a network of 2,000+ pilots. Scheduling roughly 4,500 flights a year (about 500 to summer camps), the team relied on manual whiteboard planning that took days, was fragile to pilot cancellations, and didn’t scale for the seasonal surge in demand.

Carnegie Mellon students led by Prof. Willem‑Jan van Hoeve built an AIMMS-based app deployed on the AIMMS Cloud to automate planning: users upload spreadsheets of passengers, locations and pilot availability, and the tool returns optimal flight plans in seconds. The solution has sped up planning, reduced travel time and fuel use, maximized pilots’ donated time and resources, and delivered significant time savings and increased capacity for AFW’s summer camp missions.

Angel Flight West

Stephan Fopeano

Analytics Consultant