Fleet Auto Planner
This feature is still in beta. Please study these instructions carefully.
The Fleet Auto Planner is an advanced solution for automatic assignment of aircraft (tail) to a given schedule. Its core principle is very simple: the algorithm finds an assignment that minimizes the total repositioning time for all aircraft, while still ensuring that the schedule can be executed.
To use this feature, go in the OPS view and find the “three dash” menu in the lower right corner. Click on it to unfold, then under Batch Flight Operations select Fleet Auto Planner.
The pop-up window will appear. In this window, select the date interval and the aircraft type for which automatic planning is to be performed.
After selecting the date interval and the aircraft type, all flights and reservation already assigned to aircraft of the selected type will appear. Note that all flights assigned to the given aircraft type, but not to a specific tail will not be visible here, but will be included in planning.
In this example, we have no flights assigned to aircraft so far, but we have two maintenance windows for two different aircraft: one extending all way through the selected date interval, and the other one covering it only partially. These will also be taken into account while finding an optimal assignment.
To start the calculations, click on Optimize Plan. Don’t worry—no actual assignment changes will be done at this point.
For a brief moment, the “Calculating…” screen will be visible, and after a while, the generated assignment should appear.
The flights assigned to the specific aircraft will be shown as rectangles. The algorithm tries to assign flights in a way that minimizes the need for additional repositioning. It uses great circle distances to make sure there will be enough time to for any required repositioning. However, any such repositioning—in case it’s needed—is not added automatically, allowing you to add it manually later on, considering multiple additional factors (e.g. slot availability).
If you are satisfied with the results, you can click the green UPDATE button in the bottom right corner to update your flights with the generated assignment. It will replace all existing aircraft assignments for the flights in the selected period and cannot be undone.
Otherwise, you can click CANCEL or close the pop-up window and no changes will be persisted.