A MAGAZINE FOR AIRLINE EXECUTIVES 2009 Issue No. 2

Planning departments follow industry best practices to compete

Global carriers take various steps to remain in the black

Air Malta makes big changes across entire organizations

11 20 46

A Conversation With … Dave Barger, President And Chief Executive Officer, JetBlue Airways, Page 14.

T a k i n g y o u r a i r l i n e t o n e w h e i g h t s

Happy Jetting

© 2009 Sabre Inc. All rights reserved. wearelistening@sabre.com

O perations professionals increas-ingly value aircraft situational dis-play tools for the maintenance of

operational control. While an ASD primar-ily focuses on graphical weather and the present position of aircraft, Airspace Flow Manager provides a unique solution, enabling carriers to proactively manage current and potential air traffic system disruptions.

The missing tool has been a single source of information to show what is happening in the U.S. National Airspace

System and, more importantly, what is going to be the impact on their opera-tion. With this information, carriers can proactively manage their flights to reduce delays. A great many opportunities made possible by collaborative decision making go unused because of the multitude of Web sites and tools that have to be con-sulted to get all necessary information, which is most needed when there isn’t time to look for and analyze it.

With Airspace Flow Manager, how-ever, dispatchers, operations controllers

and air traffic control coordinators are more operationally aware and can pro-vide more definitive answers. Capabilities include:

Monitoring flight lists associated with ground delay programs and ground stops;

Identifying specific flights that are impacted by GDP, GS and other traffic flow management programs;

Compression modeling to calculate delay reduction as a result of routing out of a constraint area;

A capacity demand analyzer to graphi-cally model the impact of a GDP;

A My Airports feature that provides real-time status of ATC delays, diver-sions and cancellations for a specified list of operationally critical airports.

Airspace Flow Manager facilitates a reduced workload and increased manage-ment oversight for an airline’s operation. The planning horizon increases, and air-lines can make better cost-saving deci-sions during constrained operations. The key is reducing the impact of the volatile national airspace system and traffic man-agement programs. Each minute of delay costs an airline US$74.10, so literally every minute counts to improve the bot-tom line, and a higher percentage of on-time flights yields satisfied customers.

A key feature of Airspace Flow Manager is the Route Analyzer tool, allowing for the graphical display of mul-tiple routes between a city pair. This becomes increasingly important when there are air traffic control constraints.

In addition, Airspace Flow Manager uses the graphical components of Sabre® AirCentre™ Flight Explorer to present the information. Airspace Flow Manager takes Flight Explorer to the next level by bringing planned and scheduled flights

solu

tion

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81ascend

Going With The “Flow”

WiththeabilitytoquicklyshowtheimpactonanytrafficmanagementinitiativesforfutureflightsusingtheRouteAnalyzertool,anairlinecannowproactivelymanageitsoperations.

By Dana Knight | Ascend Contributor

Sabre® AirCentre™ Airspace Flow Manager combines the data of seven tools in use by airlines, as well as other air transport-related companies, today for air traffic control information. The data is filtered so only the information that will impact operations is presented.

82 ascend

solu

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ns into the picture. The same detailed infor-

mation available for active flights is now available for those that are on the sched-ule as well as the ones for which a flight plan has been filed.

With one tool that replaces many, tasks are completed more efficiently, decisions are made more effectively and airlines operate with greater precision than ever before. a

Dana Knight is operations solution director for Sabre Airline

Solutions®. He can be contacted at dana.knight@sabre.com.

RouteAnalyzerquicklyidentifiesavailableroutesbasedonactualandpredictedweatherusinganextensive,customizedrangeofweathersolutionsfromavarietyofindustry-lead-ingproviders.Thisfunctionalityenablesoperationsprofessionalstoquicklymakenecessaryrouteadjustmentsintheeventofweather-relatedirregularoperations.

2050 The year in which the International

Air Transport Association has set

a target to reduce airline industry

emissions by 50 percent compared to

2005 emissions. This is one of three

challenging targets relating to avia-

tion climate change IATA identified

in September that will require air-

lines, airports, air navigation service

providers and manufacturers to join

forces to achieve.

77,000 The number of new jobs in the United

States that would be created if NextGen

were put on the “fast track,” according to

IATA’s Giovanni Bisignani, who recently

called on the U.S. Obama Administration

to renew its role as a leader in the global

aviation industry and take immediate

action to boost the U.S. economy.

30 The percentage by which the global

aviation accident rate has declined

from January to August this year

compared to the same period last

year, according to Giovanni Bisignani.

While the decreased accident rate

is encouraging, IATA recently called

for greater cooperation between the

United States and the International

Civil Aviation Organization to break

down silos and share safety informa-

tion and data.

+count it up