What Flt Planning software do the airlines use

[An Artificial Member]

The title says it all really, just something I have always wanted to know,for no particular reason ! Does anyone know ?

Thanks in advance

AM

[IO540]

The c0cky answer is they don't - the pilot is just a bus driver with an ATPL, who steps onto the plane and somebody hands him a pack containing the route (the flight plan has already been filed, of course), the weather, etc. Everything has been worked out by the ops department.

I know at least some operations use a Jeppesen product called Jetplanner. I tried to find out more from Jepp once, but made the mistake of asking about the cost, and their attitude was that if I need to ask I can't afford it and they stopped the communications.

Jetplanner seems to do just about everything for upper airway route planning including whether it's worth filling up at different places versus fuel costs etc etc etc.

You will get a better answer posting the Q in some airline forum.

OTOH some corporate jet pilots have to do everything themselves.

[Dan Winterland]

Of course they do! The answer to 'which one?' is either the cheapest, or the one that saves them the most money. Some bigger airlines have the facilities to produce their own, smaller ones tend to purchase a system.

I've used several in my career. the best with out a doubt is Jeppessen's 'Jetplan'. It is however the most expensive (AFAIK) and an airline will have to justify it's cost in savings made to the accountants to purchase it. I have also used BA's 'Sword" (not bad), 'Phoenix' (which I think originated with Continetal in the USA and was almost as good as Jetplan), SAS's RODOS (poor) and Cathay Pacific's Airpath (accurate, but the presentation of information is a mess).

My current airline used a very cheap system, the justification in it's use was that it was cheap to buy. But the fuel figures were so innacurate we used to carry extra fuel just in case. We pointed out to the management that by buying a more accurate system the saving would be more than the cost of the system. We would often aim to have 5 tonnes extra on arrival and for that in a 747 over an 8 hour sector, you burned an extra 2,5 tonnes so you loaded 7.5 tonnes above flight plan fuel. Not only was this expensive in extra fuel burned, we would sometimes have to unload a pallet of freight to get it on so there was considerable lost revenue as well! We have recently been bought by a bigger airline and now use their system which is very accurate. We trust the figures and the savings in less fuel carried alone must be huge.