Prediction Of Flight Delays Using Feature Engineering, Catboost, And Bayesian Optimization To Improve Model Performance

Flight delays have become a major issue in the aviation industry, impacting operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. This study proposes a CatBoostClassifier-based approach combined with Feature Engineering, Bayesian Optimization, and Random Over Sampling techniques to improve the accuracy of flight delay predictions. Based on model evaluation results, the use of Feature Engineering and Bayesian Optimization enhances performance compared to the baseline CatBoost model. The CatBoost+FE+Bayes combination achieves an accuracy of 83.32%, higher than the unmodified CatBoost model, which only reaches 82.95%. However, applying the Random Over Sampling technique in the CatBoost+FE+Bayes+ROS combination decreases model performance, reducing accuracy to 81.44%. Regarding other metrics, the CatBoost+FE+Bayes model demonstrates the highest F1-score of 0.62, indicating a balance between precision and recall. Additionally, the Area Under Curve (AUC) analysis reveals that CatBoost+FE+Bayes has the highest AUC value of 0.7793, followed by CatBoost+FE at 0.7768, and the unmodified CatBoost model at 0.7643. Meanwhile, the application of ROS leads to a decrease in AUC value to 0.6787. These findings suggest that utilizing Feature Engineering and Bayesian Optimization significantly enhances flight delay predictions. However, resampling techniques such as ROS do not always positively impact the tested model and can even degrade classification performance. The objective of this research is to develop a more accurate flight delay prediction model through the application of appropriate optimization techniques. The resulting model is expected to improve prediction quality and benefit the aviation industry by optimizing operational efficiency and minimizing the negative impact of delays on passengers.