Airlines and The Holy Grail of Recovery

Every year, airlines burn billions of dollars on delays and consequent passenger compensation claims. A whole industry has sprung up around airline disruptions, with the promise of helping passengers to claim the money due to them in this way. EU regulations like EU261 result in six figure sums of money in compensations, and IT is often the only solution to avoid disruptions and enable airlines to get back on track quickly. 

The decades long quest for optimal IROPS recovery 

Mathematicians, business analysts and operations research experts around the world have been working hard for years to find appropriate recovery solutions for disruptions in airline operations. Sophisticated mathematical optimization algorithms and the definition of the target values have been explored and presented, but the holy grail of optimal recovery remains elusive. This would ideally be one which considers all the relevant recovery factors such as aircraft, crew, pax, costs, weather, regulations, ATC, fuel, airport and maintenance data. 

Computing power has increased considerably in recent times, and this helps us to speed up calculations and data processing. However, one of the most important challenges is to bring the horse power to the street, or in other words, communication of the “optimal solution” to all stakeholders. By the time the crew, pax, stations, ATC and other third parties are all lined up and ready to be processed, the world has again changed and new disruption factors have been added to the table. Well, let’s go back to the drawing board and start the optimization game again, Shall we?

Is it realistic to find a steady optimum in an ever-changing airline operations environment? Is it a purely academic exercise which the airline world has to give up to enable the search for better operations disruption recovery?

Airline OCC staff such as operations controller, maintenance planner and crew tracker are not necessarily mathematicians; however these people come up with the optimal recovery solutions and decide whether the sophisticated computer generated scenario is acceptable. Even if the IT systems are able to produce different scenarios simultaneously, the final decision - Which of the many solutions should the airline apply now? - is a tough call. Non-mathematicians have to understand the mathematically accurate solution, however it’s not easy when you factor in the realities: Is there an exception from the rule today? Is there a VIP on board the flight, which takes priority over everything else? Airlines have business rules which sometimes need exceptions due to operational constraints. 

The unique, million dollar solution button doesn’t exist in the airline industry yet. Millions of Operations Research experts will not be amused to read this, because they just started another new approach, albeit with a slight adjustment of existing formulas and algorithms.

 It’s time to rethink Disruption Management with a more human and user focused approach. 

A new approach for the airline industry 

The ever changing and never ending dynamics of factors that contribute towards effective management of airline operations disruption and recovery is evidence enough that the solution lies in empowering and assisting the users with timely information and intelligent tools, rather than leaving it to a press-of-the-button universal solution. 

It must be instead an IT solution designed to help the operational controllers in making decisions during severe disruptions, rather than trying to create a tool designed to replace their expertise.

Use case for a new airline disruption management concept

The major hub of XYZ Airlines is an airport we shall call ABC. The following scenario highlights how the new approach in disruption management would help to handle unplanned closure of ABC for up to 3 hours

These are now the situations to be managed by the OCC staff

Airborne flights due to arrive at the airport, having ETA within closure period

• Divert
• Return
• On Air Hold

Flights scheduled to arrive at the airport with closure period, but not yet Airborne

• Delay
• Re-Route
• Cancel
• Depart with planned on-air hold

Flights scheduled to depart from the airport within closure period

• Delay
• Cancel
• Delay & Tail / Fleet Change

Stranded aircraft at diverted stations

• Continue to ABC
• Ferry to base

Downstream flights impacted due to the above changes

• Delay
• Cancel
• Tail / Fleet Change

Decision support wizards with full information transparency

The ops controller will be guided by decision support wizards through the entire situation and has full visibility on all relevant factors and disruption impacted aspects. The OCC staff is in complete control and has transparency on pax, crew, aircraft, fuel, alternate airports and maintenance. 

The user applies the possible options of delaying, cancelling, holding or diverting flights and gets immediate feedback about the impact on connecting pax, crew and aircraft rotations. Completing the recovery scenario with trade-offs and several options, the OCC staff now has a real-time holistic view on the recovery solution.

Every individual scenario has its own set of KPIs and after being guided through the wizard process, along with transparency on the solution, the OCC staff can easily decide which of the scenarios should be applied.

Sample of KPI overview

• Start time: 04th Sep, 2016 10:13
• End time: 04th Sep, 2016 11:09
• Total elapsed time: 00:56
• Total number of flights impacted: 40
• Total number of flights cancelled: 5
• Total number of flights delayed: 56
• Total number of flights diverted: 16
• Total number of reassignments: 76
• OTP at Start: 76%
• OTP Now: 72%

Collaborative Disruption Management

Disruptions occur regularly and every airline OCC has a sophisticated disruption management policy, in order to mitigate the impact for travelers and crews. The heat is on for airlines as passengers quickly communicate via social media channels if planned things go wrong. News of runway closures are communicated by passengers over Twitter faster than formal channels like airport NOTAMs. Furthermore, Airlines have to cope with the digitalization of passengers. What started some years back with airport collaborative decision making (A-CDM) was just the beginning. The System Wide Information Management (SWIM) and data sharing between airlines, airports, ground handlers and air traffic control under the SESAR project in Europe requires the individual parties to share data and prepare the individual IT systems. Hence the question now is, are the airlines ready for the next step of collaborative disruption management?

An integrated operations platform for all activities on the day-of-ops enables airlines which operate as a group to flexibly respond to disruptions. CDM has evolved from Collaborative Decision Making at airports to Collaborative Disruption Management for airlines. Information sharing is a no-brainer if all group airlines have access to the same digital platform which is integrating all relevant operations data like reservations, load planning, flight planning, weather, maintenance, airport, passenger data, aircraft, crew, Air Traffic Control, station and hub data.

This also enables group airlines to benefit from synergies among airline groups. Data integration is easy working on one single platform which can be accessed from everywhere in the world just using a smartphone, tablet or a light weight notebook. HTML5-browser deployment provides easy access and keeps hardware costs low.

Four to six airlines can collaboratively work together on one set of data which is in real time available for each individual OCC. Every airline could see what the other airlines do while still protecting privacy and data security of highly confidential data.

Key elements of the future disruptions management and airline recovery

?  Configurable set of tools combined to form a work flow

?  Decision support wizards and information transparency

?  Workflows designable for specific operational scenarios.

?  Workflows to be re-designable and tools to be reconfigurable based on dynamic needs

?  System guides user through established workflows, and provides pertinent data or suggested solutions at each stage

?  Keeps user in full control of the decisions that are being made and enable him/her to override suggested solutions based on his/her specific knowledge of the current situation

?  Facilitate user to evaluate and improve solutions, prior to finalizing and publishing the solutions 

https://lnkd.in/drPnpKC

https://www.ibsplc.com/white-papers/airline-operations/the-holy-grail-of-recovery-and-optimization

Please just contact me via e-mail or LinkedIn if you want to see how this Disruption Management concept will make the difference in the Operations Control Center.

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