This five-day course provides an overview of the basic fundamentals of the key elements of the airline’s planning process – scheduling, network, and fleet planning. It is meant for staff who are new to the planning function as well as staff who have less than two years of planning experience and who wish to obtain a more rigorous and theoretical approach to their understanding of the operational planning process. It will also be useful for staff not directly involved in the airline’s planning process but who wish to gain a better appreciation of the issues involved, for example, staff in marketing and sales, international relations, civil aviation and other regulatory authorities.

In addition to covering the fundamentals of scheduling, network and fleet planning, the course also provides an overview of the basic tools and data that are required within the planning function, including in a review of passenger traffic demand data (and data sources), flight schedules data, network planning and optimisation tools. The course takes on a very hands-on approach, with considerable classroom exercises as well as individual and group work and case studies. The participants will also get the opportunity to consider the processes involved in optimising an actual route network.   A summary of the topics covered in the course is given below.

• Acquire the fundamental skills involved in creating an effective and profitable network and fleet plan
• Gain a better understanding of how your company's revenues and profitability are heavily dependent on its network and fleet plan
• Learn basic market and route forecasting techniques
• Create and develop a schedule that effectively uses the aircraft resources of your company
• Become more efficient in improving aircraft and fleet utilisation
• Implement more effective scheduling strategies    

• Network planning staff
• Fleet planning staff
• Network planning personnel
• Schedule planning staff
• Staff in the market planning area who wish to better understand the network planning function

• Demand and supply dynamics
• Using databases
• Passenger traffic demand and market estimation
• Airline capacity
• Route profitability
• Passenger traffic flow – point to point versus true origin-destination
• Airline economics and costs
• Route and network determinants
• Scheduling design and planning
• Operational constraints in the planning process
• Network strategies and tactics
• Network optimisation
• Fleet planning
• Fleet management
• Strategic and operational analysis related to fleet

This course now combines the best of both the previously-offered "Network & Fleet Planning" and "Scheduling Design & Planning" courses into a five-day intensive workshop. 

The "Scheduling Design & Planning" course is no longer offered as it was in 2004 and 2005.