NetLine improves cost efficiency and use of resources
In a business as complex as the airline industry, economic success depends on optimizing business processes with regard to costs and resource use. For more than ten years, Lufthansa Systems has been making a name for itself with solutions in this field. Using the latest mathematic and computer science methods, the powerful tools of the NetLine Optimization Suite help airlines optimize network planning, flight scheduling, crew management and operations control.
Using NetLine optimizers, airlines profit in many ways, namely regarding cost efficiency due to optimal use of resources, robustness of the flight plan, and stability of duty and rotation schedules – no matter how many changes have to
be carried out.
Smooth flights with NetLine/Crew
For those responsible for crew management, the production of duty rosters for flight crews is a complex task, and one that requires thorough planning. Good planning includes consideration of factors such as language skills, routes, and whether the crew is qualified for a particular aircraft. In addition, the plan must reflect relevant contractual provisions, the duty wishes of the crew members themselves, and the airline’s need to use its crews profitably.
However, even a perfect plan cannot be regarded as unalterable. Unforeseen events such as road congestion or sickness of crew members can arise at any time and require rapid responses from crew planners. Coordinating shifts means reacting flexibly and making spot decisions, e.g. bringing in crew members on standby.
With its crew management solution NetLine/Crew, Lufthansa Systems offers support for every phase of crew management, from construction pairing to crew rostering, crew tracking and post-flight activities such as the production of analyses, statistics and documentation. The newest NetLine/Crew Suite optimizers – Pairing xOPT, Fairness xOPT and Preferences xOPT - represent innovative, high-performance modules that extend the NetLine/Crew performance range even further.
New-generation aircraft allocation
Another important part of an airline’s operational planning is tail assignment. The term is derived from the words 'tail sign' which is an aircraft’s individual registration number painted on the back end or 'tail' of each plane. It describes the assignment of individual aircraft to particular flights. Through careful planning, an airline can turn this complex task into a further optimization of its flight operations. The new module NetLine/Ops Tail xOPT does exactly that - by providing an efficient tool for the planning of aircraft rotations.
Tail assignment is usually performed much later than fleet assignment. Only seven to one days before departure, a particular available aircraft is chosen to operate the flight. An earlier allocation would be subject to too many changes in schedules and aircraft rotations, making it inefficient. In this regard, the careful integration of scheduled maintenance for individual planes is of special importance. Aircraft should be scheduled for overhaul events early enough to keep legal deadlines, but not too early to avoid wasting resources.
The overall goal is to ensure stable, efficient and economical flight operation. A plan is “robust” if operational incidents like delays or cancellations on the day of departure do not impact the other flights. The optimizer thus plans buffers into the schedule to ensure stability. One of them is a close connection of crew and aircraft rotations: As every crew change increases the risk of instability, it is better to keep crew and plane together throughout the day.
NetLine/Ops Tail xOPT uses the same technology as the new-generation crew optimizers of NetLine/Crew. In addition to significantly improving the quality of the aircraft and crew planning processes, the new optimizers save airlines a great deal of time and money.
News
PCI Compliance Engine certified
PCI Compliance Engine
"Tokenization" by Lufthansa Systems
The increasing abuse of credit card data has prompted major credit card companies to introduce the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for the processing of credit card data. Failure to comply with these rules - around 380 detailed requirements - can result in heavy fines or even exclusion from credit card transactions. Airlines are highly dependent on credit card data in their processes. This is because, unlike other companies, airlines use credit cards not only for payments but also for service transactions such as mileage credit and check-in. That makes them a primary target group to fulfill the new standards.
Lufthansa Systems’ PCI Compliance Engine has passed its final test before officially being launched on the market. The unique multi-application and multi-platform approach for the improvement of credit card payment security has been certified to comply with the latest Payment Applications Best Practices (PABP) standard of leading card company Visa. The certification, conducted by independent auditing company Security Research & Consulting GmbH (SRC), proves the high quality standards applied to the development of the product.
The PCI Compliance Engine solution from Lufthansa Systems facilitates PCI DSS compliance with a minimum of effort. The new technology eliminates the card numbers within the affected applications and replaces them with artificial IDs. The Engine is the only data unit to isolate and store the credit card numbers. By shielding the affected applications they can be taken out of the scope of PCI DSS. As a consequence, the effort necessary to reach PCI DSS compliance is reduced significantly.
Croatia Airlines uses innovative cockpit solution Lido eFlightBag
Croatia Airlines will be the latest carrier to equip its fleet with the Lido eFlightBag. By introducing this electronic flight bag solution from Lufthansa Systems, Croatia Airlines is underlining its role as an innovative, forward-looking member of Star Alliance. The Zagreb-based airline is already using IT solutions from Lufthansa Systems for its flight and crew planning, codeshare management, flight operations and passenger handling.
The Lido eFlightBag is a technologically advanced solution and a major step for carriers to achieve the paperless cockpit. It enables Croatia Airlines to replace most of its pilots’ paper manuals and other working materials. The Lido eFlightBag optimizes information processes in the cockpit, easing the work load of the crews and improving flight safety. It also helps to lower costs by providing current operational data for all calculations, and it eliminates the effort involved in continually updating, printing and distributing paper-based documents.
Croatia Airlines was founded in 1989 and is now one of the leading airlines in southeast Europe, serving destinations throughout Europe and the Middle East.
Kuwait Airways and Lufthansa Systems extend their collaboration
Lufthansa Systems and Kuwait Airways have signed a three-year extension of their usage agreement for the Lido Operations Center (Lido OC) flight planning solution. The Kuwaiti carrier, a Lido OC customer since 2005, will thus continue to benefit from the advantages of one of the most efficient solutions of its kind.
Lido OC enables Kuwait Airways to optimize its route calculation. The solution automatically calculates the ideal route between two airports and creates reliable and easy-to-understand briefing documents for each flight. Lido OC combines safety and flexibility with fuel efficiency and cost savings. With its modern technology and user-friendly architecture, the system covers all aspects of flight planning and follow-up processes, including navigational and meteorological data.
The fleet of Kuwait Airways currently comprises 21 modern aircraft. Established in 1954, the airline operates scheduled flights to 46 destinations in the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America from its home base in Kuwait City.
Trends
myIDTravel – the new portal for staff travel management
myIDTravel
The integrated ID travel management solution
The ZED-MIBA Forum (ZMF) is an umbrella organization, comprising ZED (Zonal Employee Discount Agreement), which is for personal travel, and MIBA (Multilateral Interline Business Travel Agreement), which is for duty travel. Airlines join the ZED-MIBA Forum and participate in either the ZED agreement or the MIBA agreement or both, as they wish. The Forum is made up of over 175 member airlines from all parts of the globe.
Thanks to individual ID agreements, airline employees can fly the routes of many different airlines all over the world – on duty and private trips. They obtain a ticket for the desired route from their employer. The ticket also indicates which airline it is valid for, ensuring that the employee is accepted by the airline concerned. In the past, however, the subsequent accounting processes between the issuing and operating airlines were far more complex. Using the new portal myIDTravel from Lufthansa Systems, the booking and accounting processes for employee travel between the airlines concerned are now much faster and more straightforward.
In the middle of 2006, the ZED-MIBA Forum invited tenders for a project to develop and introduce an innovative interlining model: The booking and accounting of employee flights was to be simplified and realized using electronic tickets. Lufthansa Systems won this tender and began immediately with realization.
Paper tickets are now history
MyIDTravel offers its users a standardized solution for the simple handling of duty and private trips. Airline employees can also comfortably book and settle their flights on other airlines electronically. This means that paper tickets are now also history for ID travel. The employees book their tickets centrally in the system which can be accessed, for example, via the intranet of their airline. In the background, myIDTravel accesses the reservation systems (GDSs) of the participating airlines. The system automatically takes individual ID agreements into consideration.
21 airlines (including Finnair, Emirates, Thai Airways and SAS) have already decided in favor of using myIDTravel and are working jointly on its realization with Lufthansa Systems. The first airlines will be actively using the myIDTravel service by the end of 2008.
ELWIS increases efficiency in cargo handling
Cargo handling is an increasingly demanding business. Competition is tough; the pressure to reduce costs is as high as anywhere in the airline business. And with the crucial role of air freight as part of a frequently world-spanning logistics chain the customers expect better service and fast information. To enable cargo airlines to meet all these challenges Lufthansa Systems has developed ELWIS (Electronic Logistics & Warehouse Information System), a modular IT solution for air cargo ground handling.
ELWIS covers the entire cargo handling process from physical handling to documentation and invoicing. Thanks to its numerous interfaces it is able to exchange data with national and international authorities, airports, airlines, freight forwarders and customs. Furthermore, ELWIS integrates the latest technology along the transportation chain – automatic weighing scales, barcode scanning, wireless technology, RFID or the use of PDA – and makes it possible to control the entire handling process automatically. The system also provides the tools for tracking and tracing, monitoring functions, reporting and irregularity handling. This results in impressive efficiency gains.
Today, ELWIS is used at 25 airports in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America handling more than 3.2 million tons of freight per year, which makes it the leading standard IT system for this part of the aviation business. Al Alamain International Airport in Egypt and Tirana International Airport in Albania are the latest customers to opt for ELWIS to simplify and automate their cargo handling processes. ELWIS is part of the AdvancedCargo Suite, the innovative air cargo IT platform from Lufthansa Systems.
All navigation charts in the right order
Today, airlines make great efforts to ensure that their pilots always have complete and up-to-date navigation charts for every flight. Traditionally, pilots carry their own route manuals. The update process is time-consuming and costly due to the large number of route manuals to be updated and the amount of time pilots need to invest.
For the Lido RouteManual, however, Lufthansa Systems offers a complete service package for revising the manuals which can significantly lower costs for airlines and help guarantee that their route manuals are always complete and up to date. Through migration to so-called 'ship manuals' the entire updating process becomes much simpler. Navigation documents are no longer assigned to pilots but instead to individual aircraft.
The service package covers both the provision of updated charts and the automated check of each Lido RouteManual in accordance with the list of effective pages (LEP). Every page in the manual has a bar code with information on the chart’s status and placement in the route manual. During the revision process scanners read the bar codes of each individual chart and compare the chart’s effective date and sequence in the route manual with the data in the LEP master file. This immediately indicates whether any charts are missing, have been misplaced and need to be exchanged or resorted - a quality assurance procedure which would be nearly impossible to carry out manually.
Evergreen International Airlines is the first customer to opt for this comprehensive service, and it is now benefiting from Lufthansa Systems’ established processes which guarantee that complete and up-to-date manuals are delivered to the aircraft.
