EFFICIENT CREW PLANNING
Crew management combines a major efficiency factor for an airline with an important social dimension. Cockpit and cabin crew deliver an airline's core product and are the face of the company in the eyes of the passengers.
Thus it is essential to make sure that they can do their work under optimal circumstances and to keep them highly motivated.
At the same time, crew efficiency is an important factor in airline efficiency and profitability. The challenge for crew planners is to maximize both aspects. This is not an easy task, given the many uncertainties. More than with aircraft, the availability of personnel depends on uncertain factors like illness, holidays and career development.
Schedule Consult's support in crew planning involves the following:
- The best duties, pairings and rotations
- Optimal workload and efficiency of crew rosters
- Planning with the human and entrepreneurial uncertainty factors in long term crew planning
- Support in negotiations on Flight Duty Regulations
- Solidity of the crew planning process
CREW ROTATIONS
The definition of duties and pairings is mostly a direct resultant of the FDR. But not
always.
Maximum duties lead to maximum rest times, which can undermine regularity of the planning. Both from a human perspective as from a planning perspective this is not desireable.
That's why thinking out-of-the-box and reviewing several alternatives -if you know where to look- is worthwhile. Further, crew rotations very much depend on the schedules of the airline. Sometimes, small time-differences can have relatively high impact on efficiency. Also in this respect Schedule Consult's broad expertise in the design of schedules is beneficial, being in an ideal independent position to judge which fine-tuning of schedules would be realistic.
OPTIMAL CREW ROSTERS
It is important to realize that improving the efficiency of crew rosters is not
always contrary to improving their social acceptability. Good changes bring gains on both fronts.
Our support is geared to both tracks, because the elements are equally important to the
airline.
Each quest for improvement starts with a screening of the present crew rosters for options to
improve. This includes an inventory of bottle necks in social acceptance and efficiency. The
analysis will disclose several options for improvement within the limitations of the present
restrictions. These can be implemented on short-term and give you an instant return on our efforts.
Other bottle necks may take more time to address. This is the case when for example changes
in the restrictions must be sought. Not all restrictions are inflexible but changing them mostly
requires further study, lobbying,
FDR negotiations or better tools.
SEASONAL CREW PLANNING
More than the planning of any other resource, the seasonal planning of crew is subject
to restraints and uncertainties. Crew members need to be hired and trained before they can
participate in the production. Thus there is a long lead time. Crew planning needs to know well in
advance what the requirements will be. Problem is that the commercial cycle of schedule planning is
much shorter. Thus, long term crew planning is equivalent to aiming at a moving target.
Further, the availability of people depends on more uncertain factors than the availability of other airline capabilities. To this come further uncertainties in human factors like illness, mutations, licensing, holidays or completing the training in time.
Last but not least, the stakes are high: shortage as well as excess crew numbers cost fortunes to the airline. Thus an optimally balanced long-term crew planning can significantly increase profits.
Applying Schedule Consult's seasonal crew planning format will significantly diminish the risk of negative surprises.
FLIGHT DUTY REGULATIONS
In practise a crew contract (FDR) contains social bottle-necks as well
as economical bottle-necks, which come on the table at each round of negotiations.
Schedule Consult is specialist in finding win-win improvements, which can serve as breakthrough in crew contract negotiations. Read more about this on our special Flight Duty Regulations page.
SOLID CREW PLANNING PROCESS
Crew planning is a dynamic process. It is important to ensure that its outcome is
efficient and stable. Crew planning should be able to deal with disruptions without immediately
affecting all the rosters. It is also crucial to enable earlier reactions to dynamics
down the road.
Managing this in daily practise requires a solid planning process.
Schedule Consult screens the systematics and assumptions of your entire crew planning process and organization for improvements. Read more about our support in upgrading the planning process.
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