Context
When Covid hit, this airline had just accomplished a successful financial restructuring, focussing again on its profitable core European business. With Covid, airtraffic capacity was reduced, and then as Covid was more and more under control, capacity had to be built up again in an operationally safe and sound manner. In these consecutive ramp-ups of aircraft numbers, re-staffing in an efficient way became very challening.
Our Mission
Develop and embed Lean insights and tools to provide a more agile crew planning process towards the network and scheduling departments, all while in parallel increasing crew satisfaction and efficiency.
Results
- No wetleases (externally insourced capacity) were needed during summer 2023 and no flights were cancelled due to crew shortage.
- Over 33% Sick Leave reduction in 2023 vs 2022, indicating increased satisfaction and commitment, resulting in a multi-million € yearly recurring cost reduction.
- Significantly increased understanding of (crew planning) process interdependencies from the day of operation up to the long-term planning, over the different departments, leading to improved decision taking.
Approach
- An initial diagnostic phase led to the definition of 6 workstreams, with each a series of key initiatives. Each of the initiatives was tackled in a collaborative way to design and implement solutions in terms of process improvements, systems/tools improvements, skills development and mindset changes.
- Significant efforts were put in instilling a culture of continuous improvement in each of the teams through training and cross-departmental workshops.
Main challenges
- Working across EU locations required adaptability to work with clear cultural differences.
- The crew management value chain was under the responsibility of various Directors within the company, requiring thorough and continuous coordination and alignment.
- Besides the day-to-day operations, consecutive ramp-ups during summer operations had to be operationally managed by the involved people while at the same time dedicating time to the project.
- Within the client’s internal project team, various team member changes had to be managed.
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