The Case To Make Crews Happy (Too)

“Utilisation per month is 60 hours”

“We utilised 40% of standbys yesterday”

“We can get 2 hours more utilisation if we merge these pairings”

We’ve all heard statements like these being thrown around in a crew planning context. However, if we were to remove the context or industry jargon of crew planning from the above statements, they can also be interpreted as statements about a Volvo. So why do we talk about crews like they are cars, rather than actual people?

The Short-Term Cost

Crews are expensive (Pilots especially, wink). As a result, utilisation becomes a key metric in the crew planning space as airlines want to get the maximum bang for their buck. Basic salaries, associated allowances and training cost components account for one of the highest cost items for an airline. Additionally, training slots and schedules need to be managed to the tee in order to stop crews from becoming unqualified to fly, which then becomes a large unnecessary cost. Therefore, the key economic principle here is that crew cost and headcount is kept to a minimum when utilisation is maximised.

The Long-Term Cost

However, is there a case here to suggest that pushing towards maximising utilisation can lead to higher costs in the long run?

A key effect of pushing crew utilisation is squeezing more duties and workload during the same period. Whilst legal, there is a possibility that this can cause an increase in unhappiness amongst crew as it leads to lifestyle changes. One consequence here could be a higher rate of attrition. Training crews (especially pilots) is an extremely expensive affair and should attrition increase, airlines must also incur the higher cost of rehiring and retraining. A second, more nuclear consequence could be industrial action. Past experience teaches us that rolling cancellations due to industrial action have cost airlines hundreds of millions of dollars.

So how exactly can we go about managing these risks? If we were to place more emphasis on crew satisfaction rather than purely on utilisation in a planning context, could we potentially manage these adverse effects?

The Now

We talk about a few metrics now that we think mean crew happiness. Roster stability, fairness of hours, bidding success %, pairing robustness, call-up rates etc. The issue here is that none of these actually directly measure how crews are feeling, but are more inferential. We assume stability and fairness mean that crews are happy. However just because a crew has the same amount of hours as the others, they may not feel happy that they have had to do the same pairing back to back for 3 days when others have not. So how do we close this gap?

It is key here to bring crew happiness as a quantifiable and measurable metric into the crew planning equation. ?Short, snappy surveys centred around NPS or CSATS style metrics can give crew management teams great insights into how happy crews are with their rosters and lifestyles. We can then tie this feedback to metrics such as attrition and measure true impact and cost. This shift allows us to almost treat crews as a customer, rather than an asset.

The Future

Crew planners have a hard enough time as it is balancing various requests and needs. This is where crew planning systems need to step up. A balance needs to be struck here between the short term (utilisation) and the long term (happiness). Ideally an airline needs to sit somewhere in the middle to ensure the true lowest cost outcome.

This starts from the pairings process in ensuring that pairings are built not only robustly, but also with satisfaction in mind. Think sector pairings that not only maximise utilisation, but take granular crew feedback at a route level and factor it into the equation. Crew feedback on a route level also provides insight as to which pairing/roster patterns will boost happiness or unhappiness if flown too much/little, which is rich insight for a roster optimiser.

Now to suggest that we can always fully give every crew the roster they want is probably a bit too optimistic. So the nirvana here for systems to be able to optimise to find the ideal balance between both outcomes (utilisation vs. happiness) and quantify it. The magic slider. Which can be moved a little bit to either side depending on feedback, creating a loop.

Now while we may have some ways to go to get to our magic slider, we can start now at least by changing the narrative and not only talking about how much we can push crews as an asset, but to also start talking about crews as human beings with lives and feelings ??.

TLDR

·?????Crew utilisation is important, but it should not be the only metric that is considered as whilst it might optimise short run cost, it may come with the risk of significant long run cost

·?????It is important to define metrics for crew happiness and have mechanisms to consistently gather data and introduce this into the crew planning equation. Short and snappy surveys are a great way to do this without burdening crews too much, and incentivise feedback

·?????Crew planning systems need to be able to make and visualise the tradeoff between utilisation as a short term cost item, and happiness as a long term cost item to allow for true optimisation of crew cost