Long-Range Reserve Crew Manpower Planning

Airlines are continually faced with the challenge of efficient utilization of their cockpit crew resources. In addition to regular flying crews, airlines maintain significant reserve staffing levels to meet contractual obligations and provide smooth daily operations. Most airlines also depend on voluntary and involuntary flying by regular crews to cover trips that fall out of work schedules due to conflicts and disruptions (open time trips). These open time trips, combined with expected levels of voluntary and involuntary flying, affect reserve staffing levels; airlines must plan crew staffing in advance to meet resulting training and new-hire requirements. Inefficient operational reserve utilization can further affect long-range crew staffing, resulting in higher training and new-hire costs. The proposed optimization strategy to estimate long-range crew staffing combines operational reserve utilization and premium operational costs due to voluntary and involuntary flying with long-range business needs.