SAS have recently broadened their use of Carmen Crew Rostering to include the Carmen Crew Requests functionality (known as Preferential Bidding System – PBS – at SAS). In order to minimize training of crew and utilize the latest technology, SAS and Carmen have jointly introduced a new generation of the Carmen´s crew requests entry system, InterBids. We recently visited the Copenhagen SAS crew base in Denmark to see how the crew are adapting to the new way of influencing their working schedules.

Kurt Kjelgaard, Captain at SAS, and a driving force behind the new system, demonstrated the system, and explained the usability theories behind it.

“The user-friendly inter-face was crucial especially as one of the major prerequisites for the project was that no crew should be taken out of production to spend time training in the use of the requests system.”

SAS decided to phase in the new preferential bidding functionality in two steps, starting with two crew groups.

“This gave us three months worth of ‘test’ time to evaluate the findings and the participation rate. The result was that the introduction of the crew requests system was so painless that we decided to introduce all crew members earlier than originally planned,” says Kurt Kjelgaard.

To allow the individual crew member to get the most out of the new system without formal training, SAS has provided many different levels of assistance.

Different documentation like “Getting Started” and a “User Guide” is available on the SAS crew portal. The crew requests entry system also contains a help function together with a section of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). Before the introduction phase, crew requests specialists (floorwalkers) were given special training at the Carmen premises in Göteborg. The specialists are available for enquiries from crew at each base during week-days in designated “PBS Corners”.

Kurt Kjelgaard says that it is considered highly important to give feedback to the crew about the results. “Information flows in a variety of ways to the crew via mail, handouts, posters and notices. Representatives in the PBS Corners have complete records for each individual, enabling them to analyze any result face-to-face with the crew. Eventually we will print certain crew requests information directly onto the monthly crew roster slip,” he says.

“Results from the first month at SAS show that 75% of the tested flight deck crew placed one or more bids.

The results from the second month indicated that the participation rate increased to over 80 %. So far we are very satisfied with the participation rate and the overall result,” concludes Kurt Kjelgaard.

Björn Samuelsson, Software Engineer at Carmen said he believes that the new version of InterBids is easier to use than the previous version.

“It also contains technical solutions that improve the performance and makes it easier to use from any location. Since we still are in an initial project phase we do see some things that require tuning. For example, we have some cases where commuter crew have been given short pairings instead of long pairings. Currently we are working on ways to make it easier to enter complex profiles (e.g. commuters often want long pairings, pairings with late check-in and early check-out, layovers in their home city, etc).”

Finally we ask Bo Tørper, Commander, 737, about his impression of the new system. According to Bo the system has been easy to learn. “The face-to-face assistance from specialists at the PBS corners, plus easily accessible information has really helped in learning how to use the system. It is very easy to use and I´m positive it has definitely given me greater influence and more autonomy over my schedule”, he says.