INFORMS Open Forum

2026 AIR TRANSPORTATION SECTION Best Paper Award Competition

The Air Transportation Section (ATS) of INFORMS announces the 2026 ATS Best Paper Award Competition to recognize an outstanding paper in the field of aviation applications. The paper must demonstrate innovative approaches for solving complex problems in aviation and air transportation, with an emphasis on operations research and quantitative methods.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for the competition, the paper must meet the following criteria:

• The main topic must relate to the field of aviation and air transportation.
• The paper must be written in English.
• It must have been published in a refereed journal, or made available as a preprint via a recognized publishing platform, within the period from June 1, 2024, to May 31, 2026. For preprints, the date of online publication must be easily verifiable.

Submission Guidelines

• Each author may submit only one eligible paper. 
• No individual may be a co-author on more than two papers submitted to the competition.

Topics of Interest

All topics within the field of aviation and air transportation will be considered. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

·       Aviation economics, operation concepts, and business models.

·       Airline operations.

·       Air traffic flow management and airspace management.

·       Tactical air traffic control.

·       Airport operations.

·       Air transportation networks.

·       Aircraft trajectory management.

·       UAS traffic management.

·       On-demand air mobility.

·       Electric/hybrid aircraft operations.

·       Drone delivery.

·       Pilot, flight deck, or onboard decision-making models.

Award Announcement and Prize

The winning paper will be announced at the ATS business meeting to be held during the 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Francisco (USA).

Submission Process

To submit a paper for the 2026 competition, one of the authors must email the following to the Chair of the ATS Best Paper Award Committee, on or before June 15, 2026, 11:59 pm UTC.

1. A copy of the paper.
2. A short cover letter (maximum one page) describing the merits of the paper.

Submissions should be sent to g.lulli@lancaster.ac.uk with the subject line:

"2026 ATS Best Paper Award Application / Applicant name."

Review 

All submitted papers will be evaluated and scored by the Award Committee, composed of:

·       Luis Cadarso (Rey Juan Carlos University)

·       Luigi De Giovanni (University of Padua)

·       Guglielmo Lulli (Lancaster University, chair)

·       Bruno Santos (KLM Royal Dutch Airlines)

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Guglielmo Lulli
Professor
Lancaster University
Lancaster (UK)
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