Audience
This course addresses beginners not familiar with crew rostering and preferential bidding concepts. Experienced planners with no or little knowledge of the Carmen Crew Rostering System should begin with the course Rostering I.

Benefits
The course gives you an introduction to standard crew rostering and preferential bidding concepts. After completing the course you will have a thorough understanding of:

• The entire planning cycle - from timetable planning to tracking
• Standard planning concepts and nomenclature
• The objective of the crew rostering problem
• The complexity of the crew rostering problem
• The effect of crew rostering rules
• The difference between legality and quality rules
• The challenge of satisfying crew bids
• Further complicating factors (qualifications, fairness, training programs, fly below rank, etc.)
• The various problem types and their characteristics (flight deck, cabin, long haul, short haul etc.)
• Different approaches to solving the crew rostering problem

Prerequisites
No prerequisites are required for this course.

Course topics

• The planning cycle
• Timetable planning
• Fleet assignment
• Pairing planning
• Crew Assignment and preferential bidding
• Roster maintenance
• Tracking / Crew control


• The basic crew rostering problem
• Input and output
• The combinatorial explosion
• Objective
• Cost aspects (real costs and penalties)
• Legality and quality rules


• Preferential bidding
• What is preferential bidding?
• Bidding concepts
• Satisfaction concept
• Auction bidding
• Strict seniority
• Other concepts
• Bid types
• Bidding vs. costs and fairness


• Complicating factors
• Qualifications
• Base variants
• Fairness requirements
• Training programs
• Fly below rank


• Problem instanses and their characteristics
• Long-haul vs. short-haul
• Flight deck vs. cabin crew

All exercises are done using a generic flight data and rule set ("Carmen Airlines").

Duration
1 day.