In this work, we study the ground staff scheduling problem for airports facing a shortage of personnel. From a management perspective, the objectives are to minimize costs, address the personnel shortage problem without hiring temporary workers, and improve the responsive ability to the interruptions caused by uncertain factors. We propose a mixed-integer optimization model for balanced task coverage considering limited personnel and, according to features of the problem, design an efficient heuristic algorithm. The effectiveness of the algorithm and model is verified by real cases from a large airport. From two practical perspectives, the distribution of unassigned tasks in the scheduling cycle and the fairness among employees, we analyze the applicability of the model. The results confirm that the model performs well in confronting the staff shortage, improving the efficiency of airport operations, and assisting managers in making decisions on personnel composition.