Airlines’ operational resilience assessment: integrating BWM, TODIM, and rough DOMBI methods
Abstract
The aviation sector is among the most vulnerable industries to unforeseen disruptions, including natural disasters, pandemics, and international conflicts. Airlines are increasingly recognizing the critical importance of business resilience in managing these disruptions. This study develops a comprehensive framework that utilizes Rough Dombi and Z-number fuzzy methodologies, combined with multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches, to evaluate criteria and solutions influencing aviation industry resilience in Taiwan through a case study of four airlines. First, an evaluation framework for airline resilience is established through a literature review and expert interviews. The Best-Worst Method (BWM) determines the weights of evaluation indicators, while the TODIM (Tomada de Decisão Interativa Multicritério) method identifies gaps between each company’s performance and ideal values. Results reveal that “Management expertise sensitive to environmental changes and able to enhance abilities beyond their own business” is the most influential factor, and Airline A2 serves as a benchmark for others. Sensitivity analysis with varying criterion weights and comparative analysis with alternative MCDM techniques validate the robustness and reliability of the findings. First published online 29 September 2026