Selecting a Cargo Aircraft for Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Operations by Multicriteria Decision Aid Methods

Airlift operations are vital to support contingency plans during the major humanitarian and disaster relief (HDR) events. The access to disaster zones is often limited by unsafe conditions, poor road infrastructure, and lack of commercial air services. To overcome these limitations, the development of larger planes has allowed bulkier equipment and larger quantities of supplies to be transported by fewer flights. Embraer developed the KC-390 airplane to carry out logistics support and HDR missions. Multinational HDR events usually call for a wide variety of aircraft. The comparison between the KC-390 and the C-130 gains relevance under these circumstances, where the two will be competing for use in emergency support. This article aims to provide support for the allocation of the appropriate aircraft to each mission, by quantifying the advantages (and possible disadvantages) of the KC-390 compared with the C-130 based on the relative difference of their technical performance. Consolidated scores are established through the probabilistic composition of preferences by combining preference probabilities using weighted sums. The weights are calculated based on the experience of pilots applying the analytical hierarchical process. Among the types of missions analyzed, search and rescue present the highest difference in technical performance, in favor of the KC-390.