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Realistic scheduling agreement: Defining principles and objectives
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Transportation Research Procedia 43 (2019) 156–164
8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019 GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019 GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION
Realistic scheduling agreement: Defining principles and objectives Realistic scheduling agreement: Defining principles and objectives Andrea Brezoňáková* Andrea Brezoňáková*
University of Žilina, Air Transport Department, Univerzitná 8215/1, 01026 Žilina, Slovakia University of Žilina, Air Transport Department, Univerzitná 8215/1, 01026 Žilina, Slovakia
Abstract Abstract Airline rostering consists of a complex sequence of tasks that, depending on time away from the event, are shared in multiple stages between several rostering departments. Their synchronisation, as well as the roster production, is a complex and a vital Airline consists of asubject complex sequence ofbetween tasks that, depending on time away from the event, are in multiple process rostering that is continuously to discussions rostering departments, operators, regulators, andshared local negotiating stages between several rostering departments. Their synchronisation, as well as the roster production, is a complex andadopted a vital parties, as well as between individual crew members. From the regulatory and legislative aspects, EASA member states processFlight that isTime continuously subject discussions betweenfor rostering regulators, and localrespectively. negotiating EASA Limitations (FTL).toFTLs are mandatory operatordepartments, Airlines, andoperators, their scheduling departments parties, as often well assee between individual members. Frommaximum the regulatory and legislative aspects, states adopted Operators the limitations as crew a target to achieve duty times and minimum restEASA times.member However, FTLs were EASA Flight Time Limitations (FTL). FTLs are mandatory for operator Airlines, and their scheduling departments respectively. designed as a recommendation to operator Airlines and under no circumstances describe the FTL as a limit. The primary task of Operators often see plan, the limitations as a target to achieve maximum duty rest times. However, FTLs were an individual roster given an optimum amount of crew members, is totimes coverand theminimum required amount of flights. Altogether, the designed as and a recommendation and under the no circumstances describe FTL as a limit.the The primary task of regulations limitations musttobeoperator adheredAirlines to. Additionally, roster should find a fairthe balance between operational needs an individual roster plan, given an optimum amount of crew members, is to cover the required amount of flights. Altogether, the and effective usage of crew member’s capacities. However, in real-world conditions, an individual roster plan has a significant regulations limitations must be adhered to. Additionally, the roster should find asleep fair balance between thelife. operational needs impact on aand crew member's work-life balance, in terms of ruling an individual's pattern and social By adding up and effective usage of crew member’s capacities. However, in real-world conditions, an individual roster plan has a significant operational delays and unforeseen circumstances, the individual might eventually face challenges such as fatigue or even impact onThus, a crew member's work-life balance, in terms ruling and an individual's sleep authority, pattern and social life. By scheduling adding up burnout. a more protective agreement between the of operator local negotiating called a realistic operational delays and unforeseen circumstances, the individual might eventually face challenges such as fatigue even agreement, aims to protect workforce interest and improve the work-lifestyle balance. This article discusses issuesoraround burnout. Thus, a more protective agreement between the operator and local negotiating authority, called a realistic scheduling rostering at European airlines and describes matters that might arise when building such an agreement between the Company and agreement, aims to protect workforce improvepaper the work-lifestyle balance. This place articleofdiscusses issues around local negotiating authority. The scope interest of this and discussion is to outline the inevitable a realistic scheduling rostering atwithin European airlines describes some matters might arise aspects when building such an agreement between the and agreement an airline byand highlighting of that the controverse of EASA FTL’s. As a methodology, theCompany author chose local negotiating authority. The scope of this discussion paper is to outline the inevitable place of a realistic scheduling a discussion approach rather than a comparison of quantitative data. While most of the available research papers focus on roster agreement within an airline highlighting some of controverse aspects of EASA methodology, theon author chose optimising parameters in thebyscheduling process, thethe author would like to outline theFTL’s. impactAs of athe current FTL’s individual alifestyle discussion approach rather than a comparison of quantitative data. While most of the available research papers focus on roster balance and their management with respect to fatigue mitigation. optimising parameters in the scheduling process, the author would like to outline the impact of the current FTL’s on individual lifestyle balance and their management with respect © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. to fatigue mitigation. Peer-review under responsibility ofElsevier the scientific © 2019 The Authors. Published by B.V. committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). bythe Elsevier B.V.committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, GLOBAL TRENDS INPublished AVIATION Peer-review under responsibility of scientific Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION
* Corresponding author: Tel.: +421 41 513 3451 E-mail address: [email protected] * Corresponding author: Tel.: +421 41 513 3451 E-mail address: 2352-1465 © 2019 [email protected] The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, 2352-1465 2019 TheINAuthor(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. GLOBAL © TRENDS AVIATION Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION 2352-1465 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION 10.1016/j.trpro.2019.12.030
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Keywords: airline scheduling; crew rostering; roster publication; realistic scheduling agreement; flight time limitation; fatigue; work-life balance
1. Introduction 1.1. Scheduling of an Airline Airline crew scheduling, often known as rostering, relates to a series of logistical processes assigning duties to the workforce - in this case, the workforce is composed of individual crew members, both flight deck and cabin crew. Given the complexity of planning in medium and large airlines, the logistical processes are backed up by information systems called scheduling programmes and optimisers. The inputs are the so-called pairings and outputs are duties assigned to the individual crew member. A roster has to comply with a series of restrictions enforced either by a regulatory authority, local Flight Time Limitations (FTL), and/or by placing local rules that are agreed between the Company and the local negotiating groups. The slight difference between scheduling and rostering lies with the object of interest. Merriam-Webster dictionary (Merriam-Webster, 2019) defines scheduling as appointing, assigning, or designating a timetable, printed list, catalogue or inventory for a fixed time. A roster is an itemised list, a roll or a list of personnel or such a list giving the order in which a duty is to be performed. Thus, scheduling is a general process where rosters are assigned to individual crew members, therefore, rostering is understood to be the equivalent of scheduling. However, scheduling in an airline is a very complex and vital process that has, over time, found various definitions and categorisations. Wren (1996) defines rostering as ‘‘the placing, subject to constraints, of resources into slots in a pattern. One may seek to minimise some objective, or simply to obtain a feasible allocation. Often the resources will rotate through a roster’’. According to Musliu, Gärtner, and Slany (2002), “personnel scheduling algorithms consist of different stages related to each other, that can be solved simultaneously or in sequence, depending on the context”. Ernst, Jiang, Krishnamoorthy, and Sier (2004) describe personnel scheduling as a “whole process of constructing work timetables for an organisation’s staff, in order to satisfy the demand for its goods or services.” Ladier, Alpan and Penz (2014) call weekly timetabling “the part of the process which consists of determining the number of employees needed and allocating these employees to shifts (sets of consecutive time periods within a day) to meet the demand (Lazar et al., 2015). Daily rostering refers to the assignment of tasks to employees on a daily level”. Furthermore, “multi-day personnel scheduling problems’’ defined by Brucker, Qu, and Burke (2011) in their general model for personnel scheduling can be split into two stages: in the first stage, the working days are assigned to the employees (i.e. weekly timetabling), whereas the second stage assigns a shift for each employee working on a given day and a task for which the employee is qualified on each working period. Most of the academic research focuses on roster optimisation, involving the operational aspects of commercial operations. In the real world of airline operations, it has been acknowledged that an optimisation process of costs related to scheduling is of high importance. Airline scheduling can drastically reduce operational costs (Kohl and Karisch, 2004), where crew costs typically represent the second-largest expense after fuel costs, amounting 15-20% of airlines operations costs (El Moudani et al., 2001). However, scheduling is a complex process composed of factors that oppose each other. The many conflicting objectives during schedule assignment need to follow restrictions imposed by governmental regulations, union agreements, and company-specific rules restricting the construction of the flight duties as well as the individual lines-of-work (Cappanera and Gallo, 2004; Caprara et al., 1998; El Moudani et al., 2001; Ernst et al., 2004; Kohl and Karisch, 2004; Maenhout and Vanhoucke, 2010; Thiel, 2004). 1.2. Structure of Airline rostering Various sections of rostering departments exist. The most common depend on the time frame and time away from the event: • long-term, such as pre-scheduling, pairing design, manpower; • medium-term, such as crew plan or replanning; and • short-term, such as replanning and operations.
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According to Ladier et al. (2014), there are three subproblems - workforce dimensioning, weekly task allocation, and on-the-day rostering. The main objectives of rostering defined by Ernst et al. (2004) aim to minimise costs, meet employee preferences, distribute shifts equally and satisfy all the workplace conditions. Kohl and Karisch (2004) describe a timeline of scheduling processes within a European airline. The process aims to maximise revenues at the initial stage, up to the phase when aircraft rosters are published. At later stages, the focus is on minimising costs through the real-life day-to-day operations. The latter approach, as per Figure 1., describes a timeline where a maximisation of revenues through rosters planning is possible, and that the maximisation stage is later on replaced by a stage aiming to minimise costs. Once the rosters are handed over from flight crew planning, the Operations Control team’s responsibility will be to avoid operational disruptions and minimise any expenditure.
Fig.1. Crew Rostering problem. Source: (Kohl and Karisch, 2004).
According to Clausen et al. (2010), the rostering process consists of four major steps: • Flight schedule design - aims to find a set of flight routes, and more importantly - to maximise profits while reflecting both the fleet composition and crew restrictions. • Fleet assignment deals with aircraft types assignment in order to maximise profit and ensure that required coverage, fleet count, and maintenance are fulfilled. • Aircraft maintenance routing aims to determine a set of aircraft rotations so that revenues are maximised and maintenance requirements are met. • Crew planning consists of following sub-processes - crew pairing, crew assignment/crew rostering, preassignments and crew recovery. Ernst et al. (2004) defines three approaches to aircrew scheduling: • Pairing generation requires pairing design and coordination of the pre-scheduling team and commercial department. New routes will be added into the list and depending on airport or route slots availability, the combinations of routes will be generated. A pairing is usually referred to as a “rotation” or a “duty”. • Crew pairing optimisation involves crew availability optimisation once the pairings are designed and generated.
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Fig. 2. Timeline of scheduling processes. Source: (Clausen, 2010).
Clausen et el. (2010) extends the rostering problem to objectives, rules, activities, crew and the rosters. See Figure 2. The objectives focus on costs, crew bids and general roster robustness, by defining roster robustness per the amount of roster changes/roster disruption. Roster rules implement FTL items such as rest-time, off days, vacation and duty limits into the actual published rosters. Other than flight duty activities involve training, reserve days or ground duty. There might also be restrictions applied with regards to crew qualification, pre-assignments or vacations. At the final stage, all these items blend into the published rosters that rule an individuals work and private life activities. Rosters are the final outcome of a complex scheduling process where a given timeline needs to exist. As explained in this subchapter, during this process, various factors and aspects of airline operations come into consideration. Knowing that the flight operations require flexibility if inputs vary significantly, causing a potential for roster instability. The aim of this paper remains; the construction of a realistic schedule that complies with the existing agreements and rules. A scheduling agreement will be, primarily, defined by the type of operations. E.g. short-haul or long-haul and/or if any fixed pattern roster is in place. 1.3. Scheduling in the context of EASA FTL introduction The introduction of EASA FTL’s raised several questions and critiques from fatigue experts (Moebus report, 2008). Only a few recommendations out of the eighteen in total, have been implemented in the EASA FTL, including multiple sector duties reduction by 30 minutes after the third sector and per every sector (Moebus’s proposal was the duty reduction of 30 minutes after the second sector). Airport standby’s counting as a full flight duty period. Partly recognised items were standby protections in terms of sleep requirement in the period between 2300-0700, and that the flight duty extension by in-flight rest depends on the seat quality (ECA, 2018). EASA has undertaken an extensive fatigue study on the impacts of EASA FTL’s, after the FTL’s were put into law. As per a scientific evaluation published earlier in 2019 (EASA, 2019), night duties longer than ten hours and disruptive schedules show an increased probability of high fatigue levels, highlighting that prescriptive limits alone are not sufficient to prevent high fatigue during night flights. Furthermore, a marginal increase in fatigue was found for mixes of disruptive flight duty periods. Further scientific research is thus, recommended in this area. As a recommendation, the findings above should be tailored and adjusted in the relevant Operator’s Fatigue Risk Management. The role between the Regulator, Operator and the Individual in this process, through an established Fatigue Risk Management, gives more opportunities to the Operators who can plan more flexible schedules. However, as acknowledged by EASA, the direct or indirect impact of the roster on the health and wellbeing of an
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individual is highly significant. Thus, if the EASA FTL is understood to be the bare limiting factor, a better worklife balance can be achieved by putting more restrictions into the scheduling process, calling it a realistic scheduling agreement. 2. Types of individual rosters As discussed, roster design and their production will mainly depend on the type of operation, fixed pattern implementation and the structure of routes. The author will briefly discuss the variable and fixed pattern rosters within both short haul and long haul operations, and their relation to a realistic scheduling agreement. 2.1. Variable roster The most current practice with airline operators is the production of variable rosters. The basic constraints are given by the Regulatory Authorities and the existing Flight Time Limitations (FTL’s). The FTL’s are characterised by their maximising and minimising nature - establishing a maximum length of duty time and minimum rest time for the crew member. The initial purpose of introducing FTL`s was to provide guidance to operators on the usage of their personnel. With time, there are indications of maximising the production, thus, taking the Flight Time Limitations by its exact meaning and using the crew members up to the regulatory/legislative limit. According to EASA (2015), “Flight duty period (FDP)” means a period that commences when a crew member is required to report for duty, which includes a sector or a series of sectors, and finishes when the aircraft finally comes to rest and the engines are shut down, at the end of the last sector on which the crew member acts as an operating crew member. A “duty” means any task that a crew member performs for the operator, including flight duty, administrative work, giving or receiving training and checking, positioning, and some elements of a standby. A “rest period” means a continuous, uninterrupted and defined period of time, following duty or prior to duty, during which a crew member is free of all duties, including standby and/or reserve. The distinctive factor between a flight duty period and duty is the nature of the duty. i.e. an FDP is related to an active flight, or series of active flights, while duty can relate to any duty the crew member is assigned, e.g. simulator training. FTL’s also define the maximum length of a particular duty - depending on the number of sectors flown or the hour when the duty starts. In long-haul operations, rest time will depend on the amount of time zones crossed. The state of acclimatisation is defined by the amount of time zones crossed and hours spent at the outstation. Generally, the longer the duty, the longer minimum rest it will attract - if the duty exceeds twelve hours, the minimum post-duty rest needs to be equal or longer than the duty just completed. Unforeseen circumstances attract further extended rest requirements. A special extended rest is required to be pre-planned when an extended duty has been scheduled. As per EASA FTL Regulations (2015), no FDP without in-flight rest is allowed to start between 1900 and 0614. Extended duties have to be rostered (preplanned) - extensions on the day are not allowed. On the day, delayed reporting or commander’s discretion will be used to counteract any duty disruption. To be noted, the current EASA regulations (2015) require a minimum weekly rest of 36 hours with two local nights included, which effectively represents one single day off a week, regardless of a working day, weekend or a bank holiday. Therefore, the decision of rostering a single day off lies entirely within the rostering department and/or the negotiating groups. It is also questionable whether a single day off gives sufficient time for the crew member recovery in terms of fatigue or burnout. However, the scope of this paper remains; the construction of a realistic scheduling agreement, with the prospect of a positive impact on an individual crew member’s lifestyle. 2.2. Fixed pattern roster A sequenced period of working days and days off is described as a fixed roster pattern. There are various fixed roster types in place and are applied on short-haul operations. A fixed pattern roster on long-haul type operations is difficult to accomplish, namely due to the large variability of pairing length, restrictions on rest time and recovery once the pairing is completed by the crew member. Short-haul type operation offers more flexibility and a significant amount of one-day pairings that can be easily matched together to comply with crew members utilisation and their rest requirements. The most recently known fixed pattern rosters are 5-4, 5-3-5-4 and 7-7. The numbers
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depict an amount of working days and rest days, e.g., 5-4 roster assigns five duty days that are followed by four rest days. The 7-7 fixed roster pattern splits equally seven days between duty and rest time. A 5-3-5-4 fixed pattern assigns the crew member blocks of five consecutive duty days that are separated by alternating blocks of three and four rest days. The same FTL’s apply to the fixed pattern roster, with the unlikely possibility of single days off taking place within the fixed pattern roster. The largest benefit of a pattern is roster predictability, which gives the individual crew members an enhanced and foreseeable planning of their work or leisure activities. 3. Drafting of a realistic scheduling agreement A realistic scheduling agreement, apart from complying with national regulations, restrictions placed by the regulatory authority, and further restrictions decided by the Operator, needs to reflect specifics of the operations in the first place. These agreements are set in place between the employer and the local negotiating force - this can be either a local pilot association or a group of pilots that represents the majority of the local pilot group. Rules set by a realistic scheduling agreement can be more restrictive than the national regulations and restrictions, but never less restrictive, and need to reflect the real day-to-day airline operations. Depending on the structure of an airline, there might be several local agreements in place in case the airline bases their crews in different countries. Furthermore, the different demands of short- and long-haul operations require a set of two scheduling agreements within one local area, or respectively, an establishment of common interests between the two above in case of mixed operations. In a final draft, such an agreement might show similarities to the Company’s Operational Manual Part A (OMA), Chapter 7, that describes FTL’s and rostering practices given by EASA ORO.FTL.110 (2015). EASA ORO.FTL.110 defines the Operator’s Responsibilities and states that “The operator is required to demonstrate its associated policies and procedures in order to comply with this implementing rule. These policies and procedures do not need to be part of the scheme and may be a part of the operators Safety Management System, but will be reviewed as part of the audit process. The output from these processes and procedures will be a significant part of the approval and ongoing oversight processes.” Thus, a realistic scheduling agreement requires to start with objectives, definitions and basic terminology on Flight Time Limitations of the particular area the agreement will apply to. The most distinctive areas of focus are the following: Definitions refer to EASA FTL Regulations and S. I. No. 507/2006 - European Communities (Organisation of Working Time for Mobile Staff in Civil Aviation) Regulations 2006. Definitions cover terms such as acclimatisation, duty period, flight duty period, standby, accommodation, home base, positioning, reserve and rest facility. EASA FTL Regulations represent the bare minimum operators shall apply while a realistic scheduling agreement extends the minimum requirements and adjusts them to the actual day-to-day operations at the local area. In the UK area, the legislative ANO (ANO, 2016) prohibits a crew member to operate under fatigue conditions. Thus, in order to avoid any operational disruptions caused by extensive, fatigue-inducing duties, it is vitally important that fatigue risk mitigation is taken into account. • The Company’s responsibilities, as per EASA ORO.FTL.110, relate to scheduling, the publication of rosters and operational rosters robustness. Operators are obliged to avoid undesirable practices that would lead to a significant disruption of crew member’s sleep pattern. • Crew member’s responsibilities relate to individual control over flight and duty times, commuting time, as well as to the individuals fatigue management. In the UK area, the crew member’s responsibilities are regulated by the ANO (ANO, 2016). Liability applies with respect to sufficient rest times prior to a scheduled duty the individual crew members are obliged to comply with. • Fatigue Risk Management is a shared responsibility between the Regulator, the Operator and the Individual; and shall be embedded in all aspects of operations, especially in those parts of operations that affect sleep pattern and may cause a serious sleep disruption of the operating crew member. • In separate subchapters, definitions extend the specifications of the OM-A in order to match the actual operational demands. Essential items shall cover terminology on home base, duty and rest pattern, flight duty period (FDP), flight times, duty periods in relation to reporting times, total flight time limitations, maximum daily FTL, and night duties.
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• Attention shall be given to positioning, split duty, standby and airport duty, reserve, rest periods; as well as to unforeseen circumstances - commanders discretion and delayed reporting. • Nutrition. Considering the operational environment, special attention needs to be given to the nutritional requirements of the crew members. Crew members need to be provided with the opportunity for a meal break or be given a timeframe when a meal can be consumed. As per EASA FTL’s, during the flight duty period, there shall be the opportunity for a meal and drink in order to avoid any detriment to a crew member’s performance, especially when the FDP exceeds 6 hours. The operator is required to demonstrate its associated policies and procedures with the operating rule, either by providing a crew meal or a monthly allowance in order to cover up the costs. • Regarding suitable accommodation, examples of specific items may relate to the minimum quality of hotel accommodation provided to the crew members on duty (Badánik, 2008). EASA FTL Regulations state that “accommodation” means, “for the purpose of standby and split duty, a quiet and comfortable place not open to the public with the ability to control light and temperature, equipped with adequate furniture that provides a crew member with the possibility to sleep, with enough capacity to accommodate all crew members present at the same time and with access to food and drink”. Thus, accommodation offered to the crew member shall include a separate hotel room with blackout curtains, temperature control, bed, and access to facilities that provide food and drink. The type of operation may further extend these requirements to 24/7 food and drink provision or extra requirements of a hotel room, or hotel rating respectively. Specifics relating to the type of operation, e.g. in-flight rest and state of acclimatisation will be required for longhaul type operations or respectively, operations where flights cross four or more time zones. Mitigations to cover up the risks associated with night flight duties will need to be specified for cargo or charter operators. Furthermore, operators dominated by short-haul operations will be required to discuss more on maximum daily FTL, duty periods, as well as restrictions on consecutive working days and multiple sectors in a single duty period. 3.1. Examples of new proposed practices Early to late transitions, and vice versa, either within the duty block or between the duties on short-haul are one of the most discussed topics. Fatigue between the blocks, where the crew member starts in the night hours or finishes his/her duty in the night hours, can be compared to jet lag caused by shift planning. Within the block, early to late transitions do not require planning any extra measurements. A late to early transition within the block requires, according to EASA (2015), one local night. Scientific research prefers sleep to be a case of a routine, therefore the impact of such transitions on human health and wellbeing is questionable. Sleep fulfils a restorative function of the human body’s organs and DNA. A chronic lack of sleep can lead to several issues, such as increased blood pressure, cardiac problems, obesity, burnout or paranoia (Brezonakova, 2017; Gander, 2016). Roster protections can aim to reduce early to late, late to early transitions or abrupt roster changes. If practicable, a roster notification period is recommended to be set to at least twelve hours prior to the report for duty to allow for sufficient rest time of the individual crew member. There can be more extensive specifications, such as to keep the early or late duties within one block and a restriction to finish on the last day in the duty block within a specified time frame. The main intention is to keep a robust duty block and crew member’s sleep regime as routine as practicable. Where an early start before 6 a.m. is planned on the first day in the block, or even after a vacation block, planning a rest day on the day prior to this duty would be the best practice. Alternatively, an early start before 6 a.m. should be avoided by rostering a later duty on the first day in the duty block, or put a limit on early starts per week. On long-haul, the changeover between early and late duties will be unavoidable, due to the higher amount of time zones being crossed. Most of the long haul flights, transatlantic flights namely, are scheduled in unfavourable hours of the day and might follow specific route criteria, e.g., the route track system. Hence, it will be almost impossible to apply the rules mentioned above. Robustness of long-haul rosters can be achieved by increasing the amount of rest days or by using blocks of reserve duties, with a higher than ten hours notification period. Longer trips should attract more days off upon returning to a home base in comparison with shorter trips (where fewer time zones are crossed). Standbys shall not be rostered prior to an assigned trip but the flexibility can be improved by planning a one whole month of reserve duties, or a combination of reserve and standby duties.
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4. Conclusion The author focused primarily on a discussion around the composition of a balanced and realistic scheduling agreement. Such an agreement might appear as a copy of the Operations Manual, part A, chapter seven on Flight Time Limitations, however, it is more restrictive than the existing FTL’s or policies and procedures established by the company. More importantly, a realistic scheduling agreement reflects the actual flight operations - hence the name “realistic”. Specifically in this case, the team focused on creating a roster protection window, e.g. a window that gives more restrictions on duty changes the closer the time approaches to the duty. A roster protection window allows for a duty change up to 24 hours prior to the report time but will not permit any major duty changes after the curfew of two hours before the duty start. More restrictions also apply to short notice calls for night stops. This practice might seem very restrictive, however, it aids the individual crew members to rely on published rosters and plan their life arrangements around the assigned schedule. Although more restrictions are imposed on scheduling, the aim of these restrictions is to protect the workforce from the negative impacts of an imbalanced work-life schedule and fatigue. The lack of a robust individual roster affects the day-to-day operations in terms of fatigue, increased sickness levels and represent issues with recruitment of a new workforce, and/or further staff retention. Despite the slightly lower production output where higher roster protections and restrictions are in place, larger benefits of a realistic scheduling agreement are found in the long term perspective - namely by improving staff retention, reduction of training costs, or a lesser need to cover for sickness/not fit to fly cases. A scheduling agreement complements existing rules and procedures, as well as aids the Fatigue Risk Management in its role of managing fatigue in an appropriate way. An absence of a scheduling agreement and the improper management of FTL’s and FRM will have a significant impact onto individual crew member’s lifestyle. Thus, a review of a tailored Fatigue Risk Management, along with an audit on scheduling policies and procedures and a scheduling agreement in addition, is highly recommended. Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge that there is no conflict of interest.The author would also like to thank the scheduling specialists of the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), the Company Council and to the Company Scheduling departments for coordination on the realistic scheduling agreements matters and the common efforts on producing more robust and less fatiguing rosters. References Badanik, B. 2008. Airlines' point of view as a new approach to measuring quality of service at airports. ICAS Secretariat - 26th Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences 2008, ICAS 4, pages 1767-1772. Brezonakova, A., 2017. Pilot Burnout as a Human Factor Limitation. Transportation Research Procedia 28, 11-15. Brucker, P., Qu, R., Burke, E., 2011. Personnel scheduling: Models and complexity. European Journal of Operational Research 210, 467-473. Cappanera, P., Gallo, G., 2004. A multicommodity flow approach to the crew rostering problem. Operations Research 52, 583-596. Caprara, A., Toth, P., Vigo, D., 1998. Modeling and solving the crew rostering problem. Operations Research 46, 820–830. Clausen, J., Larsen, A., Larsen, J., Rezanova, N.J., 2010. Disruption Management in the airline industry - Concepts, models and methods. Computers and Operations Research 37, 809-821. Doerner, K., Kotsis, G., Strauss, Ch., 2002. RosterBuilder - An Architecture for an Integrated Airline Rostering Framework. University of Vienna, Department of Business Studies. EASA, February 2015. EASA FTL Regulations Combined Document and CAA Guidance to Developing an FTL Scheme. UK Civil Aviation Authority, version 3. EASA, 2019. Effectiveness of Flight Time Limitation (FTL). [Online]. Available from: https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/Report%20on%20effectiveness%20of%20FTL_final.pdf. Accessed 29th May 2019. ECA, “Scientific Findings and their Uptake by EASA and EU Commission in FTL proposal D028112/02”. ECA, 26th February 2018. [Online]. Available from: http://www.sepla.es/es/sala-de-prensa/notas-de-prensa/descargar-archivo-nota-de-prensa/evidencias-cientificas-sobretiempos-de-actividad-y-descanso-de-las-tripulaciones-aereas/. Accessed 26th February 2018. El Moudani, W., Cosenza, C.A.N., de Coligny, M., Mora-Camino, F., 2001. A bi-criterion approach for the airlines crew rostering problem. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1993, 486-500.
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Ernst, A.T., Jiang, H., Krishnamoorthy, M., Sier, D., 2004. Staff scheduling and rostering: A review of applications, methods and models. European Journal of Operational Research 153, 3-27. Gander, P., 2016. “Key Fatigue Management Scientific Principles.”. ICAO Fatigue Management Approaches Symposium, Montreal, April 2016. [Online]. Available from: https://www.icao.int/Meetings/fmas/Pages/presentations.aspx . Accessed 21st May 2019. ICAO, 2016. ICAO Doc. 9966. Manual for the Oversight of Fatigue Management Kohl, N., Karisch, S.E., 2004. Airline Crew Rostering: Problem, Types, Modeling, and Optimisation. Annals of Operations Research 127, 223257. Ladier, A.-L., Alpan, G., Penz,B., 2014. Joint employee weekly timetabling and daily rostering: A decision-support for a logistics platform. European Journal of Operational Research 234, 278-291. Lazar, T., Sedláčková, A. N., & Bréda, R. 2015. Regression in personal air transport of passengers evolution at selected airport time series method. [Regresija u osobnom zračnom prijevozu putnika-razvoj metode vremenskih serija u odabranoj zračnoj luci] Naše More 62, pages 228-232. doi:10.17818/NM/2015/SI26 Maenhout, B., Vanhoucke, M., 2010. A hybrid scatter search heuristic for personaliyed crew rostering in the airline industry. European Journal of Operational Research 206, 155-167. Merriam-Webster dictionary. Word search on “schedule” webster.com/dictionary/schedule, cited 29-06-2019.
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8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019 GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019 GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION
Realistic scheduling agreement: Defining principles and objectives Realistic scheduling agreement: Defining principles and objectives Andrea Brezoňáková* Andrea Brezoňáková*
University of Žilina, Air Transport Department, Univerzitná 8215/1, 01026 Žilina, Slovakia University of Žilina, Air Transport Department, Univerzitná 8215/1, 01026 Žilina, Slovakia
Abstract Abstract Airline rostering consists of a complex sequence of tasks that, depending on time away from the event, are shared in multiple stages between several rostering departments. Their synchronisation, as well as the roster production, is a complex and a vital Airline consists of asubject complex sequence ofbetween tasks that, depending on time away from the event, are in multiple process rostering that is continuously to discussions rostering departments, operators, regulators, andshared local negotiating stages between several rostering departments. Their synchronisation, as well as the roster production, is a complex andadopted a vital parties, as well as between individual crew members. From the regulatory and legislative aspects, EASA member states processFlight that isTime continuously subject discussions betweenfor rostering regulators, and localrespectively. negotiating EASA Limitations (FTL).toFTLs are mandatory operatordepartments, Airlines, andoperators, their scheduling departments parties, as often well assee between individual members. Frommaximum the regulatory and legislative aspects, states adopted Operators the limitations as crew a target to achieve duty times and minimum restEASA times.member However, FTLs were EASA Flight Time Limitations (FTL). FTLs are mandatory for operator Airlines, and their scheduling departments respectively. designed as a recommendation to operator Airlines and under no circumstances describe the FTL as a limit. The primary task of Operators often see plan, the limitations as a target to achieve maximum duty rest times. However, FTLs were an individual roster given an optimum amount of crew members, is totimes coverand theminimum required amount of flights. Altogether, the designed as and a recommendation and under the no circumstances describe FTL as a limit.the The primary task of regulations limitations musttobeoperator adheredAirlines to. Additionally, roster should find a fairthe balance between operational needs an individual roster plan, given an optimum amount of crew members, is to cover the required amount of flights. Altogether, the and effective usage of crew member’s capacities. However, in real-world conditions, an individual roster plan has a significant regulations limitations must be adhered to. Additionally, the roster should find asleep fair balance between thelife. operational needs impact on aand crew member's work-life balance, in terms of ruling an individual's pattern and social By adding up and effective usage of crew member’s capacities. However, in real-world conditions, an individual roster plan has a significant operational delays and unforeseen circumstances, the individual might eventually face challenges such as fatigue or even impact onThus, a crew member's work-life balance, in terms ruling and an individual's sleep authority, pattern and social life. By scheduling adding up burnout. a more protective agreement between the of operator local negotiating called a realistic operational delays and unforeseen circumstances, the individual might eventually face challenges such as fatigue even agreement, aims to protect workforce interest and improve the work-lifestyle balance. This article discusses issuesoraround burnout. Thus, a more protective agreement between the operator and local negotiating authority, called a realistic scheduling rostering at European airlines and describes matters that might arise when building such an agreement between the Company and agreement, aims to protect workforce improvepaper the work-lifestyle balance. This place articleofdiscusses issues around local negotiating authority. The scope interest of this and discussion is to outline the inevitable a realistic scheduling rostering atwithin European airlines describes some matters might arise aspects when building such an agreement between the and agreement an airline byand highlighting of that the controverse of EASA FTL’s. As a methodology, theCompany author chose local negotiating authority. The scope of this discussion paper is to outline the inevitable place of a realistic scheduling a discussion approach rather than a comparison of quantitative data. While most of the available research papers focus on roster agreement within an airline highlighting some of controverse aspects of EASA methodology, theon author chose optimising parameters in thebyscheduling process, thethe author would like to outline theFTL’s. impactAs of athe current FTL’s individual alifestyle discussion approach rather than a comparison of quantitative data. While most of the available research papers focus on roster balance and their management with respect to fatigue mitigation. optimising parameters in the scheduling process, the author would like to outline the impact of the current FTL’s on individual lifestyle balance and their management with respect © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. to fatigue mitigation. Peer-review under responsibility ofElsevier the scientific © 2019 The Authors. Published by B.V. committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). bythe Elsevier B.V.committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, GLOBAL TRENDS INPublished AVIATION Peer-review under responsibility of scientific Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION
* Corresponding author: Tel.: +421 41 513 3451 E-mail address: [email protected] * Corresponding author: Tel.: +421 41 513 3451 E-mail address: 2352-1465 © 2019 [email protected] The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, 2352-1465 2019 TheINAuthor(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. GLOBAL © TRENDS AVIATION Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION 2352-1465 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Air Transport – INAIR 2019, GLOBAL TRENDS IN AVIATION 10.1016/j.trpro.2019.12.030
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Keywords: airline scheduling; crew rostering; roster publication; realistic scheduling agreement; flight time limitation; fatigue; work-life balance
1. Introduction 1.1. Scheduling of an Airline Airline crew scheduling, often known as rostering, relates to a series of logistical processes assigning duties to the workforce - in this case, the workforce is composed of individual crew members, both flight deck and cabin crew. Given the complexity of planning in medium and large airlines, the logistical processes are backed up by information systems called scheduling programmes and optimisers. The inputs are the so-called pairings and outputs are duties assigned to the individual crew member. A roster has to comply with a series of restrictions enforced either by a regulatory authority, local Flight Time Limitations (FTL), and/or by placing local rules that are agreed between the Company and the local negotiating groups. The slight difference between scheduling and rostering lies with the object of interest. Merriam-Webster dictionary (Merriam-Webster, 2019) defines scheduling as appointing, assigning, or designating a timetable, printed list, catalogue or inventory for a fixed time. A roster is an itemised list, a roll or a list of personnel or such a list giving the order in which a duty is to be performed. Thus, scheduling is a general process where rosters are assigned to individual crew members, therefore, rostering is understood to be the equivalent of scheduling. However, scheduling in an airline is a very complex and vital process that has, over time, found various definitions and categorisations. Wren (1996) defines rostering as ‘‘the placing, subject to constraints, of resources into slots in a pattern. One may seek to minimise some objective, or simply to obtain a feasible allocation. Often the resources will rotate through a roster’’. According to Musliu, Gärtner, and Slany (2002), “personnel scheduling algorithms consist of different stages related to each other, that can be solved simultaneously or in sequence, depending on the context”. Ernst, Jiang, Krishnamoorthy, and Sier (2004) describe personnel scheduling as a “whole process of constructing work timetables for an organisation’s staff, in order to satisfy the demand for its goods or services.” Ladier, Alpan and Penz (2014) call weekly timetabling “the part of the process which consists of determining the number of employees needed and allocating these employees to shifts (sets of consecutive time periods within a day) to meet the demand (Lazar et al., 2015). Daily rostering refers to the assignment of tasks to employees on a daily level”. Furthermore, “multi-day personnel scheduling problems’’ defined by Brucker, Qu, and Burke (2011) in their general model for personnel scheduling can be split into two stages: in the first stage, the working days are assigned to the employees (i.e. weekly timetabling), whereas the second stage assigns a shift for each employee working on a given day and a task for which the employee is qualified on each working period. Most of the academic research focuses on roster optimisation, involving the operational aspects of commercial operations. In the real world of airline operations, it has been acknowledged that an optimisation process of costs related to scheduling is of high importance. Airline scheduling can drastically reduce operational costs (Kohl and Karisch, 2004), where crew costs typically represent the second-largest expense after fuel costs, amounting 15-20% of airlines operations costs (El Moudani et al., 2001). However, scheduling is a complex process composed of factors that oppose each other. The many conflicting objectives during schedule assignment need to follow restrictions imposed by governmental regulations, union agreements, and company-specific rules restricting the construction of the flight duties as well as the individual lines-of-work (Cappanera and Gallo, 2004; Caprara et al., 1998; El Moudani et al., 2001; Ernst et al., 2004; Kohl and Karisch, 2004; Maenhout and Vanhoucke, 2010; Thiel, 2004). 1.2. Structure of Airline rostering Various sections of rostering departments exist. The most common depend on the time frame and time away from the event: • long-term, such as pre-scheduling, pairing design, manpower; • medium-term, such as crew plan or replanning; and • short-term, such as replanning and operations.
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According to Ladier et al. (2014), there are three subproblems - workforce dimensioning, weekly task allocation, and on-the-day rostering. The main objectives of rostering defined by Ernst et al. (2004) aim to minimise costs, meet employee preferences, distribute shifts equally and satisfy all the workplace conditions. Kohl and Karisch (2004) describe a timeline of scheduling processes within a European airline. The process aims to maximise revenues at the initial stage, up to the phase when aircraft rosters are published. At later stages, the focus is on minimising costs through the real-life day-to-day operations. The latter approach, as per Figure 1., describes a timeline where a maximisation of revenues through rosters planning is possible, and that the maximisation stage is later on replaced by a stage aiming to minimise costs. Once the rosters are handed over from flight crew planning, the Operations Control team’s responsibility will be to avoid operational disruptions and minimise any expenditure.
Fig.1. Crew Rostering problem. Source: (Kohl and Karisch, 2004).
According to Clausen et al. (2010), the rostering process consists of four major steps: • Flight schedule design - aims to find a set of flight routes, and more importantly - to maximise profits while reflecting both the fleet composition and crew restrictions. • Fleet assignment deals with aircraft types assignment in order to maximise profit and ensure that required coverage, fleet count, and maintenance are fulfilled. • Aircraft maintenance routing aims to determine a set of aircraft rotations so that revenues are maximised and maintenance requirements are met. • Crew planning consists of following sub-processes - crew pairing, crew assignment/crew rostering, preassignments and crew recovery. Ernst et al. (2004) defines three approaches to aircrew scheduling: • Pairing generation requires pairing design and coordination of the pre-scheduling team and commercial department. New routes will be added into the list and depending on airport or route slots availability, the combinations of routes will be generated. A pairing is usually referred to as a “rotation” or a “duty”. • Crew pairing optimisation involves crew availability optimisation once the pairings are designed and generated.
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Fig. 2. Timeline of scheduling processes. Source: (Clausen, 2010).
Clausen et el. (2010) extends the rostering problem to objectives, rules, activities, crew and the rosters. See Figure 2. The objectives focus on costs, crew bids and general roster robustness, by defining roster robustness per the amount of roster changes/roster disruption. Roster rules implement FTL items such as rest-time, off days, vacation and duty limits into the actual published rosters. Other than flight duty activities involve training, reserve days or ground duty. There might also be restrictions applied with regards to crew qualification, pre-assignments or vacations. At the final stage, all these items blend into the published rosters that rule an individuals work and private life activities. Rosters are the final outcome of a complex scheduling process where a given timeline needs to exist. As explained in this subchapter, during this process, various factors and aspects of airline operations come into consideration. Knowing that the flight operations require flexibility if inputs vary significantly, causing a potential for roster instability. The aim of this paper remains; the construction of a realistic schedule that complies with the existing agreements and rules. A scheduling agreement will be, primarily, defined by the type of operations. E.g. short-haul or long-haul and/or if any fixed pattern roster is in place. 1.3. Scheduling in the context of EASA FTL introduction The introduction of EASA FTL’s raised several questions and critiques from fatigue experts (Moebus report, 2008). Only a few recommendations out of the eighteen in total, have been implemented in the EASA FTL, including multiple sector duties reduction by 30 minutes after the third sector and per every sector (Moebus’s proposal was the duty reduction of 30 minutes after the second sector). Airport standby’s counting as a full flight duty period. Partly recognised items were standby protections in terms of sleep requirement in the period between 2300-0700, and that the flight duty extension by in-flight rest depends on the seat quality (ECA, 2018). EASA has undertaken an extensive fatigue study on the impacts of EASA FTL’s, after the FTL’s were put into law. As per a scientific evaluation published earlier in 2019 (EASA, 2019), night duties longer than ten hours and disruptive schedules show an increased probability of high fatigue levels, highlighting that prescriptive limits alone are not sufficient to prevent high fatigue during night flights. Furthermore, a marginal increase in fatigue was found for mixes of disruptive flight duty periods. Further scientific research is thus, recommended in this area. As a recommendation, the findings above should be tailored and adjusted in the relevant Operator’s Fatigue Risk Management. The role between the Regulator, Operator and the Individual in this process, through an established Fatigue Risk Management, gives more opportunities to the Operators who can plan more flexible schedules. However, as acknowledged by EASA, the direct or indirect impact of the roster on the health and wellbeing of an
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individual is highly significant. Thus, if the EASA FTL is understood to be the bare limiting factor, a better worklife balance can be achieved by putting more restrictions into the scheduling process, calling it a realistic scheduling agreement. 2. Types of individual rosters As discussed, roster design and their production will mainly depend on the type of operation, fixed pattern implementation and the structure of routes. The author will briefly discuss the variable and fixed pattern rosters within both short haul and long haul operations, and their relation to a realistic scheduling agreement. 2.1. Variable roster The most current practice with airline operators is the production of variable rosters. The basic constraints are given by the Regulatory Authorities and the existing Flight Time Limitations (FTL’s). The FTL’s are characterised by their maximising and minimising nature - establishing a maximum length of duty time and minimum rest time for the crew member. The initial purpose of introducing FTL`s was to provide guidance to operators on the usage of their personnel. With time, there are indications of maximising the production, thus, taking the Flight Time Limitations by its exact meaning and using the crew members up to the regulatory/legislative limit. According to EASA (2015), “Flight duty period (FDP)” means a period that commences when a crew member is required to report for duty, which includes a sector or a series of sectors, and finishes when the aircraft finally comes to rest and the engines are shut down, at the end of the last sector on which the crew member acts as an operating crew member. A “duty” means any task that a crew member performs for the operator, including flight duty, administrative work, giving or receiving training and checking, positioning, and some elements of a standby. A “rest period” means a continuous, uninterrupted and defined period of time, following duty or prior to duty, during which a crew member is free of all duties, including standby and/or reserve. The distinctive factor between a flight duty period and duty is the nature of the duty. i.e. an FDP is related to an active flight, or series of active flights, while duty can relate to any duty the crew member is assigned, e.g. simulator training. FTL’s also define the maximum length of a particular duty - depending on the number of sectors flown or the hour when the duty starts. In long-haul operations, rest time will depend on the amount of time zones crossed. The state of acclimatisation is defined by the amount of time zones crossed and hours spent at the outstation. Generally, the longer the duty, the longer minimum rest it will attract - if the duty exceeds twelve hours, the minimum post-duty rest needs to be equal or longer than the duty just completed. Unforeseen circumstances attract further extended rest requirements. A special extended rest is required to be pre-planned when an extended duty has been scheduled. As per EASA FTL Regulations (2015), no FDP without in-flight rest is allowed to start between 1900 and 0614. Extended duties have to be rostered (preplanned) - extensions on the day are not allowed. On the day, delayed reporting or commander’s discretion will be used to counteract any duty disruption. To be noted, the current EASA regulations (2015) require a minimum weekly rest of 36 hours with two local nights included, which effectively represents one single day off a week, regardless of a working day, weekend or a bank holiday. Therefore, the decision of rostering a single day off lies entirely within the rostering department and/or the negotiating groups. It is also questionable whether a single day off gives sufficient time for the crew member recovery in terms of fatigue or burnout. However, the scope of this paper remains; the construction of a realistic scheduling agreement, with the prospect of a positive impact on an individual crew member’s lifestyle. 2.2. Fixed pattern roster A sequenced period of working days and days off is described as a fixed roster pattern. There are various fixed roster types in place and are applied on short-haul operations. A fixed pattern roster on long-haul type operations is difficult to accomplish, namely due to the large variability of pairing length, restrictions on rest time and recovery once the pairing is completed by the crew member. Short-haul type operation offers more flexibility and a significant amount of one-day pairings that can be easily matched together to comply with crew members utilisation and their rest requirements. The most recently known fixed pattern rosters are 5-4, 5-3-5-4 and 7-7. The numbers
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depict an amount of working days and rest days, e.g., 5-4 roster assigns five duty days that are followed by four rest days. The 7-7 fixed roster pattern splits equally seven days between duty and rest time. A 5-3-5-4 fixed pattern assigns the crew member blocks of five consecutive duty days that are separated by alternating blocks of three and four rest days. The same FTL’s apply to the fixed pattern roster, with the unlikely possibility of single days off taking place within the fixed pattern roster. The largest benefit of a pattern is roster predictability, which gives the individual crew members an enhanced and foreseeable planning of their work or leisure activities. 3. Drafting of a realistic scheduling agreement A realistic scheduling agreement, apart from complying with national regulations, restrictions placed by the regulatory authority, and further restrictions decided by the Operator, needs to reflect specifics of the operations in the first place. These agreements are set in place between the employer and the local negotiating force - this can be either a local pilot association or a group of pilots that represents the majority of the local pilot group. Rules set by a realistic scheduling agreement can be more restrictive than the national regulations and restrictions, but never less restrictive, and need to reflect the real day-to-day airline operations. Depending on the structure of an airline, there might be several local agreements in place in case the airline bases their crews in different countries. Furthermore, the different demands of short- and long-haul operations require a set of two scheduling agreements within one local area, or respectively, an establishment of common interests between the two above in case of mixed operations. In a final draft, such an agreement might show similarities to the Company’s Operational Manual Part A (OMA), Chapter 7, that describes FTL’s and rostering practices given by EASA ORO.FTL.110 (2015). EASA ORO.FTL.110 defines the Operator’s Responsibilities and states that “The operator is required to demonstrate its associated policies and procedures in order to comply with this implementing rule. These policies and procedures do not need to be part of the scheme and may be a part of the operators Safety Management System, but will be reviewed as part of the audit process. The output from these processes and procedures will be a significant part of the approval and ongoing oversight processes.” Thus, a realistic scheduling agreement requires to start with objectives, definitions and basic terminology on Flight Time Limitations of the particular area the agreement will apply to. The most distinctive areas of focus are the following: Definitions refer to EASA FTL Regulations and S. I. No. 507/2006 - European Communities (Organisation of Working Time for Mobile Staff in Civil Aviation) Regulations 2006. Definitions cover terms such as acclimatisation, duty period, flight duty period, standby, accommodation, home base, positioning, reserve and rest facility. EASA FTL Regulations represent the bare minimum operators shall apply while a realistic scheduling agreement extends the minimum requirements and adjusts them to the actual day-to-day operations at the local area. In the UK area, the legislative ANO (ANO, 2016) prohibits a crew member to operate under fatigue conditions. Thus, in order to avoid any operational disruptions caused by extensive, fatigue-inducing duties, it is vitally important that fatigue risk mitigation is taken into account. • The Company’s responsibilities, as per EASA ORO.FTL.110, relate to scheduling, the publication of rosters and operational rosters robustness. Operators are obliged to avoid undesirable practices that would lead to a significant disruption of crew member’s sleep pattern. • Crew member’s responsibilities relate to individual control over flight and duty times, commuting time, as well as to the individuals fatigue management. In the UK area, the crew member’s responsibilities are regulated by the ANO (ANO, 2016). Liability applies with respect to sufficient rest times prior to a scheduled duty the individual crew members are obliged to comply with. • Fatigue Risk Management is a shared responsibility between the Regulator, the Operator and the Individual; and shall be embedded in all aspects of operations, especially in those parts of operations that affect sleep pattern and may cause a serious sleep disruption of the operating crew member. • In separate subchapters, definitions extend the specifications of the OM-A in order to match the actual operational demands. Essential items shall cover terminology on home base, duty and rest pattern, flight duty period (FDP), flight times, duty periods in relation to reporting times, total flight time limitations, maximum daily FTL, and night duties.
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• Attention shall be given to positioning, split duty, standby and airport duty, reserve, rest periods; as well as to unforeseen circumstances - commanders discretion and delayed reporting. • Nutrition. Considering the operational environment, special attention needs to be given to the nutritional requirements of the crew members. Crew members need to be provided with the opportunity for a meal break or be given a timeframe when a meal can be consumed. As per EASA FTL’s, during the flight duty period, there shall be the opportunity for a meal and drink in order to avoid any detriment to a crew member’s performance, especially when the FDP exceeds 6 hours. The operator is required to demonstrate its associated policies and procedures with the operating rule, either by providing a crew meal or a monthly allowance in order to cover up the costs. • Regarding suitable accommodation, examples of specific items may relate to the minimum quality of hotel accommodation provided to the crew members on duty (Badánik, 2008). EASA FTL Regulations state that “accommodation” means, “for the purpose of standby and split duty, a quiet and comfortable place not open to the public with the ability to control light and temperature, equipped with adequate furniture that provides a crew member with the possibility to sleep, with enough capacity to accommodate all crew members present at the same time and with access to food and drink”. Thus, accommodation offered to the crew member shall include a separate hotel room with blackout curtains, temperature control, bed, and access to facilities that provide food and drink. The type of operation may further extend these requirements to 24/7 food and drink provision or extra requirements of a hotel room, or hotel rating respectively. Specifics relating to the type of operation, e.g. in-flight rest and state of acclimatisation will be required for longhaul type operations or respectively, operations where flights cross four or more time zones. Mitigations to cover up the risks associated with night flight duties will need to be specified for cargo or charter operators. Furthermore, operators dominated by short-haul operations will be required to discuss more on maximum daily FTL, duty periods, as well as restrictions on consecutive working days and multiple sectors in a single duty period. 3.1. Examples of new proposed practices Early to late transitions, and vice versa, either within the duty block or between the duties on short-haul are one of the most discussed topics. Fatigue between the blocks, where the crew member starts in the night hours or finishes his/her duty in the night hours, can be compared to jet lag caused by shift planning. Within the block, early to late transitions do not require planning any extra measurements. A late to early transition within the block requires, according to EASA (2015), one local night. Scientific research prefers sleep to be a case of a routine, therefore the impact of such transitions on human health and wellbeing is questionable. Sleep fulfils a restorative function of the human body’s organs and DNA. A chronic lack of sleep can lead to several issues, such as increased blood pressure, cardiac problems, obesity, burnout or paranoia (Brezonakova, 2017; Gander, 2016). Roster protections can aim to reduce early to late, late to early transitions or abrupt roster changes. If practicable, a roster notification period is recommended to be set to at least twelve hours prior to the report for duty to allow for sufficient rest time of the individual crew member. There can be more extensive specifications, such as to keep the early or late duties within one block and a restriction to finish on the last day in the duty block within a specified time frame. The main intention is to keep a robust duty block and crew member’s sleep regime as routine as practicable. Where an early start before 6 a.m. is planned on the first day in the block, or even after a vacation block, planning a rest day on the day prior to this duty would be the best practice. Alternatively, an early start before 6 a.m. should be avoided by rostering a later duty on the first day in the duty block, or put a limit on early starts per week. On long-haul, the changeover between early and late duties will be unavoidable, due to the higher amount of time zones being crossed. Most of the long haul flights, transatlantic flights namely, are scheduled in unfavourable hours of the day and might follow specific route criteria, e.g., the route track system. Hence, it will be almost impossible to apply the rules mentioned above. Robustness of long-haul rosters can be achieved by increasing the amount of rest days or by using blocks of reserve duties, with a higher than ten hours notification period. Longer trips should attract more days off upon returning to a home base in comparison with shorter trips (where fewer time zones are crossed). Standbys shall not be rostered prior to an assigned trip but the flexibility can be improved by planning a one whole month of reserve duties, or a combination of reserve and standby duties.
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4. Conclusion The author focused primarily on a discussion around the composition of a balanced and realistic scheduling agreement. Such an agreement might appear as a copy of the Operations Manual, part A, chapter seven on Flight Time Limitations, however, it is more restrictive than the existing FTL’s or policies and procedures established by the company. More importantly, a realistic scheduling agreement reflects the actual flight operations - hence the name “realistic”. Specifically in this case, the team focused on creating a roster protection window, e.g. a window that gives more restrictions on duty changes the closer the time approaches to the duty. A roster protection window allows for a duty change up to 24 hours prior to the report time but will not permit any major duty changes after the curfew of two hours before the duty start. More restrictions also apply to short notice calls for night stops. This practice might seem very restrictive, however, it aids the individual crew members to rely on published rosters and plan their life arrangements around the assigned schedule. Although more restrictions are imposed on scheduling, the aim of these restrictions is to protect the workforce from the negative impacts of an imbalanced work-life schedule and fatigue. The lack of a robust individual roster affects the day-to-day operations in terms of fatigue, increased sickness levels and represent issues with recruitment of a new workforce, and/or further staff retention. Despite the slightly lower production output where higher roster protections and restrictions are in place, larger benefits of a realistic scheduling agreement are found in the long term perspective - namely by improving staff retention, reduction of training costs, or a lesser need to cover for sickness/not fit to fly cases. A scheduling agreement complements existing rules and procedures, as well as aids the Fatigue Risk Management in its role of managing fatigue in an appropriate way. An absence of a scheduling agreement and the improper management of FTL’s and FRM will have a significant impact onto individual crew member’s lifestyle. Thus, a review of a tailored Fatigue Risk Management, along with an audit on scheduling policies and procedures and a scheduling agreement in addition, is highly recommended. Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge that there is no conflict of interest.The author would also like to thank the scheduling specialists of the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), the Company Council and to the Company Scheduling departments for coordination on the realistic scheduling agreements matters and the common efforts on producing more robust and less fatiguing rosters. References Badanik, B. 2008. Airlines' point of view as a new approach to measuring quality of service at airports. ICAS Secretariat - 26th Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences 2008, ICAS 4, pages 1767-1772. Brezonakova, A., 2017. Pilot Burnout as a Human Factor Limitation. Transportation Research Procedia 28, 11-15. Brucker, P., Qu, R., Burke, E., 2011. Personnel scheduling: Models and complexity. European Journal of Operational Research 210, 467-473. Cappanera, P., Gallo, G., 2004. A multicommodity flow approach to the crew rostering problem. Operations Research 52, 583-596. Caprara, A., Toth, P., Vigo, D., 1998. Modeling and solving the crew rostering problem. Operations Research 46, 820–830. Clausen, J., Larsen, A., Larsen, J., Rezanova, N.J., 2010. Disruption Management in the airline industry - Concepts, models and methods. Computers and Operations Research 37, 809-821. Doerner, K., Kotsis, G., Strauss, Ch., 2002. RosterBuilder - An Architecture for an Integrated Airline Rostering Framework. University of Vienna, Department of Business Studies. EASA, February 2015. EASA FTL Regulations Combined Document and CAA Guidance to Developing an FTL Scheme. UK Civil Aviation Authority, version 3. EASA, 2019. Effectiveness of Flight Time Limitation (FTL). [Online]. Available from: https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/Report%20on%20effectiveness%20of%20FTL_final.pdf. Accessed 29th May 2019. ECA, “Scientific Findings and their Uptake by EASA and EU Commission in FTL proposal D028112/02”. ECA, 26th February 2018. [Online]. Available from: http://www.sepla.es/es/sala-de-prensa/notas-de-prensa/descargar-archivo-nota-de-prensa/evidencias-cientificas-sobretiempos-de-actividad-y-descanso-de-las-tripulaciones-aereas/. Accessed 26th February 2018. El Moudani, W., Cosenza, C.A.N., de Coligny, M., Mora-Camino, F., 2001. A bi-criterion approach for the airlines crew rostering problem. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1993, 486-500.
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