I’m surprised there hasn’t been more focus on the (to me) lack of procedural integrity within the ground handling processes taking place here, this ‘oversight’ has been around for decades when disparate systems are used at check in and at load control.
A gap very much appears to exist between the check-in side and the ground operations (load control) wing in that there seems to be two ‘systems’ in play and that either one computer system is managing only one portion of this integrated/overarching process or, two separate computers are managing each side independently and without sufficient integrity of ‘hand off’. It does seem to be the latter as it is accounted for in the first two of the seven ‘Safety Actions’ noted in the report coupled with the airline offering online check-in and ‘software’ was used to produce the loadsheet.
It is reasonable to deduce from the report is that what was missing here was a ‘passenger distribution’ communicated by passenger services to load control when they handed over the details of the passenger breakdown and baggage numbers nor was it solicited from passenger services by load control. How that handover was executed is also not apparent in the report; was it a phone call, radio call, was it the physical passing of a print out from the check-in system with passenger data on, was it a view of the passenger data held in the check in system taken by load control? I note there are no safety actions directed at any computer system improvement which may indicate that the data was available but somehow failed to be communicated across the parties.
It would be interesting to see the relevant sections of the Ground Operations Manual and/or Passenger Handling Manual to see if this process is outlined adequately.
This simple information exchange, if conducted with integrity, should -would- have discovered the seating problem causing the undesirable balance condition and providing some opportunity to get ahead of the curve of this problem and being able to take appropriate action in advance of departure.
It also means that load control quite probably produced, not necessarily intentionally, but certainly by omission a flight safety document based upon assumption and not fact (I’m trying to be careful with language here) and as such could be subject to UK ANO Section 256(6) and its affixed scheme of penalty (L5). The balance of the evidence suggests load control assumed a passenger distribution. It is of course possible that the Excel solution automatically ‘assumes’ a certain passenger distribution (personally I fail to see any good reason as to why it should do) yet on the basis that no software demands have been made in the safety actions this does not seem to be likely; a look at the Excel ‘screen shot’ in the report suggest those cells are vacant for input and therefore not automatically calculated within Excel to determine an assumed seating distribution from the total passenger number - that data was most likely entered via a keyboard and based upon assumption and not fact.
Let’s also not overlook that fact that this same scenario and therefore exact same risks can extend into all versions of a ‘system’ other than a fully integrated one; those being (a) manual check in, manual load control, (b) manual check in, automated load control and (c) automated check in, manual load control not just this scenario of automated check in, automated load control performed on two different (and not integrated) computer systems. Yes I will refer to the use of an Excel spreadsheet as an automated system despite my surprise at the fact of its use for these purposes, which therein lies another problem in most part created by the LCC solution providers - they generally ignore this significant component of airport operations yet still still call their check-in and boarding solutions a ‘Departure Control System’, when they really are not.
Excel is not an acceptable solution when a fully functional load control solution with an open API (to any/all check in systems) could be developed and on the market for comparatively very little money and competing with the likes of the major ‘DCS” providers who LCC’s usually steer clear of due to cost. Airlines who are customers of most (if not all) LCC solution providers in today’s market should not just note this they should demand it from their “DCS” provider. Far cheaper than a chunk of metal at the end of a runway.