With flying at record lows, airlines have had to respond quickly to conserve cash. Once short-term crew cost savings and remote working decisions have been made, planning teams must shift focus to different flying scenarios for 2020.

Quick decisions can create challenges in resuming operations – putting greater pressure on cost, training, leave, capacity and efficiency models. Many airlines still plan using spreadsheets, and this limits comprehensive scenario analysis. Until recently, access to airline manpower/workforce planning and optimization software has been hindered by slow implementations, complex algorithm training, and inflexibility to respond to changing operations.

The merlot.aero difference:

Our optimization software has already been proven with world-class results, can be implemented at market-leading speed, and includes ‘experts-as-a-service’ who keep your algorithms humming – allowing you to focus on decisions. In response to the COVID-19 challenge, we have accelerated the release of Workforce Planning including the ability to:

- Align crewing levels, training, and efficiency targets with business continuity plans

- Trade-off advancing training with reduced hiring needs

- Calculate minimum crew and cost scenarios

- Increase workforce plan accuracy and speed recovery scenarios

Moving from spreadsheets to optimization software delivers holistic workforce plans with greater resolution and faster turnaround between scenario iterations by leveraging the power of Microsoft Azure. Our initial Workforce Plan review requires around 1 week of setup with results in the second week.

COVID-19 1 week Airline Manpower Plan review

pateikė Merlot Aero