15 November 2001: Rave@SAS Commuter

They won the "Planning Innovation of the Year Award" at the Carmen Users Conference 2001 in Mallorca. SAS Commuter is really breaking new ground with their Rave project, which they are carrying out in close cooperation with Carmen’s Copenhagen branch office.

SAS Commuter is introducing one common legality system in their entire crew planning chain: From pairing and rostering, through roster maintenance to the day of operation. All crew planning applications (some delivered by Carmen Systems, others developed within the SAS group) will build upon one common legality code base, implemented in Rave.

"We hope to see two major effects," says Mugo Petersen, SAS Commuter's Project Manager. "First of all, the flexibility of Rave will reduce lead times for changes in all systems using the legality server. Our old proprietary legality system is almost a black box, changes sometimes take months. With Rave, we can do the changes in days or even hours."

"Another very important aspect is consistency. With all systems building on the same legality code, we ensure that definitions are alike in different systems. We have four very complex crew agreements (one for pilots and three for cabin crew), and when they change, we only have to change the legality code in one place to update all systems," continues Mugo Petersen.

SAS Commuter already uses the stand-alone capabilities of Rave – the system calculating overtime payment for crew is based on Rave code – but this project is a big step further. "We will have something quite unique within the industry. As a relatively small carrier, we are of course proud to be leading the way in this area," ends Mugo Petersen.