Due to labor laws and maintenance reasons, flight plans must be drawn up 4-6 weeks before the actual flight. This is far too early for economically-minded planners who want to ensure that the right planes with the optimal capacity are available for each route. As the date of a flight draws closer, the anticipated capacity utilization can be calculated more precisely. But flight planners cannot use this knowledge to optimize plans which have already been finalized.
Lufthansa Systems has now introduced an innovative NetLine/Sched optimizer tool for fleet assignment. This solution allows existing plans to be optimized at short notice, legally and with a minimum of effort. Fleet assignment is an aspect of long- and medium-term flight planning which involves assigning the right aircraft to each route. Many factors must be taken into consideration and weighed against each other from an economic and operational point of view. The goal is to use aircraft to full capacity and tailor the number of seats available as precisely as possible to the number of passengers. If the planner chooses an aircraft which is too large, it will result in unnecessarily high operating costs, and valuable seat capacity will go unused. But if the aircraft is too small, it will be impossible to exhaust the market potential of a route, valuable revenues will be lost and there will probably be additional costs to overcome transport bottlenecks.
We know from experience that there is great room for improvement in the period between the finalization of a plan and the departure of the flight. But how can an airline take advantage of this optimization potential? This is where the innovative optimizer concept from Lufthansa Systems comes in. This concept aims at maximizing the profitability of a flight plan with minimum effort while maintaining compliance with deadlines. Our experts developed a new Fleet Assigner that seeks out potential improvements which, though small, can save an extraordinary amount of money. The Fleet Assigner suggests changes which can be made immediately, and it estimates the savings potential of each change. Small measures such as aircraft changes can be taken at short notice without violating labor laws. In fact, a simple, clever change of aircraft can have a big impact. Planners just need to know their options - and the new NetLine/Sched Fleet Assigner makes it possible.