ABOUT SCHEDULES

CORE FACTOR IN AIRLINE PROFITABILITY

Schedules are the heart of an airline's production planning and thus have decisive impact on commercial earning power and cost levels of the network.

Their planning affects up to 90% of company costs and 100% of network revenues.

Due to this, a change in the schedules can have significant effect on profits; positive or negative.

This turns scheduling into a sensitive success factor and a powerful competitive tool.

HOW SCHEDULES STEER PROFITS

COMMERCIAL IMPACT / REVENUES Important decision factors for customers, like departure times, frequencies and transfer times are direct exponents of the schedule. Further, the sustainability of the number one decision factor -price- depends on network efficiency, which is also heavily influenced by the schedule.

COST EFFICIENCIES Besides driving direct operating costs, schedules set the conditions for efficient use of important resources like crew, fleet, handling staff and equipment, etc. Optimal utilization of these resources is necessary for a healthy cost level.

ECONOMICS The schedules determine the allocation of aircraft and thus available capacities on each market, both for cargo and pax. This has effect on load-factors and yields, critical elements in the economic health of a network.

PUNCTUALITY The number one satisfaction factor for airline customers is a punctual operation. Thus a healthy schedule contains sufficient contingency options, effective enough to allow competitive efficiency levels.

STRATEGIC POSITION On the longer run, schedules have important influence on the market position and the effectiveness of sales efforts, crucial factors in achieving sufficient yield levels.

HIDDEN INEFFICIENCIES

Despite all optimization efforts, still several major efficiency factors regularly fall outside the scope of management.

This is partly due to the way optimization is organized, for example with strong pressure on departments to sub-optimize.

More on hidden inefficiencies in airline operations...

THRESHOLDS FOR CHANGE

Due to the complexity of schedules, one change almost always triggers a cascade of other changes.

The awareness of such complexity creates a threshold for fundamental changes, as new ideas easily strand on foreseen side-effects.


At the same time, markets are dynamic and volatile. In the course of time, market needs and schedules easily drift apart.

The longer corrections are postponed, the larger the need for change will be, while the more complex such change will become.


It is our core activity to help airline teams find a way out of such situation.

With solutions that address multiple issues at the same time, we provide a welcome fresh impulse to schedules.