Airline Empires - Airline and Aviation Articles, Airline Simulation - Dynamic Fleet Planning

Dynamic Fleet Planning - a Regional Application

Written by Courtney Miller
Tuesday, 24 January 2006
Page 7 of 9 Barriers - Implementation of DFP at Comair Airlines would require several barriers to be cleared. The first situation that poses a threat to DFP’s success at Comair is crew scheduling. Although the 40, 50, and 70-seaters all operate under a common flight-crew type-rating, labor contracts specify that pilots can only be scheduled on either a 40/50-seat aircraft or a 70-seat aircraft. This greatly restricts the ability of the 70-seat aircraft to be used successfully, however it is possible. By categorizing the flights at each hub into groups that share common departure and common arrival times, 70-seat aircraft can be swapped with 40/50-seat aircraft with a minimum of schedule disruption. Figures 6 and 7 – Departure and arrival information of a small sample of compatible flights in Comair’s system. Departures are shown in figure 6, and arrivals and the next departure time are show in figure 7. Figures 6 and 7 demonstrate the ability to find compatible aircraft given the criteria of a minimum turnaround time in Cincinnati of 30 minutes. All flights shown leave CVG between 0850 and 0925 and can be swapped with one another without any disruption to the rest of the scheduled day for the aircraft. Unfortunately the SRQ flights involve a crew overnight in SRQ, that may disqualify it from being compatible. Since this flight involves a crew operating the aircraft from CVG and another crew operating the aircraft from SRQ, deadheading would have to be involved, which would also necessitate using a reserve crew and aircraft. While deadheading crewmembers does increase the cost of the flight, the increase in revenue may outweigh the additional costs. Each of these instances would have to be approached on a case by case basis, or by supplying the DFP program with enough specific cost and potential revenue data to produce a go/no-go decision. Comair also operates flights that leave their main hub, CVG, and return to a different hub, ATL, DCA, or LGA. Since, in many cases, there is more than one aircraft that would meet both the minimum connecting times in CVG upon departure, and also meet the minimum connecting time in another hub upon arrival, compatible aircraft can be found to swap. However, do to the small volume of aircraft operating between the hubs, there are only a few compatible flights a day. Optimal scenarios for dynamic swapping of aircraft at Comair involve a flight that leaves the hub, and returns to the same hub with the same crew. << Start < Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next > End >>