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Dynamic Fleet Planning - a Regional Application

Written by Courtney Miller
Tuesday, 24 January 2006
Page 4 of 9 Dynamic Capacity Management (DCM) – The first step in a successful DFP system, is selection of the right type and composition of the fleet. ORTEC Consultants B.V., The Netherlands, has created a system of evaluating how different fleet compositions effect DFP, and specifically, generating an optimal fleet composition with several input variables to maximize the benefits of DFP. DCM takes inputs of flight origin, destination, departure time, arrival time, expected demand and flight distance, and compares them with aircraft information of fixed costs per week, operational costs, capacity, range capability and aircraft type to determine the best composition of aircraft to be used in DFP. While DCM is highly proprietary, several example results have been published. Four calculations were made with fleet size, composition, flights and airports varying. Figure 1 – Data table showing DCM results using 15 and 68 aircraft fleets with both a six and nine-type fleet Figure 2 – DCM Results - Load factor increases as the different aircraft types available increases Figure 3 - DCM Results -Profit, load factor increase while spill decreases with additional aircraft in a six-type fleet . According to the results of the DCM model, profit increases as more aircraft enter the fleet since this offers more opportunities to exploit the advantages of DFP. With a 15 aircraft fleet, 6 different sized aircraft, and 342 flights per week, DCM calculates a profit increase of 10.75% which converts to $37,800 annually per aircraft. A 68 Fleet aircraft fleet with 6 types and 1978 flights per week generated an increase in profit of 12.22% or $57,700 annually per aircraft. This is significant since not only will more aircraft increase revenues, but they will also increase the profit margin due to the extra flexibility they bring. Aircraft Rotation Model (ARM) and Aircraft Assignment Model (AAM) – Alitalia operates a more tactical model aimed at the actual scheduling of the aircraft on a weekly and daily basis. The ARM deals with the weekly scheme of fleet deployment, such as aircraft rotations, and deciding which fleet type will be on which route. AAM builds the daily aircraft routing the day before the flight. ARM is more of a strategic look at the weeks coming events while the AAM deals with the details of assigning tail numbers to routes and ensuring the daily integrity of the schedule. AAM must dynamically deploy the fleet while preserving as much of the ARM results as possible. This prevents large schedule changes from being made that would increase complexity to the point that delays could be incurred. While no specific examples have been published, ARM and AAM users can expect an annual profit per aircraft increase of between $50,000 and $200,000 depending on aircraft size, route size and fleet size, among many other variables. << Start < Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next > End >>