A Mathematical Model for the Optimization of the Airport Check-In Service Problem Giuseppe Bruno 1 Dipartimento di Ingegneria Economico-Gestionale Universit degli Studi di Napoli ”Federico II” Naples, Italy Andrea Genovese 2 Management School Sheffield University Sheffield, UK Abstract This work deals with the proposal of some optimization models for airports check- in services. The aim is to decide the optimal number of check-in gates to open for departing flights, in such a way to balance the operative costs of the service and the passenger waiting time at the terminal. We propose new models for this problem, which presents strong similarities with some well known combinatorial optimization models. We show the complexity of the models and computational results based on a real case study. Keywords: Airport Check-In, Combinatorial Optimization 1 Email: giubruno@unina.it 2 Email: a.genovese@sheffield.ac.uk Electronic Notes in Discrete Mathematics 36 (2010) 703–710 1571-0653/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. www.elsevier.com/locate/endm doi:10.1016/j.endm.2010.05.089