Easyjet Spokesman - Rubbish Rostering System
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 1,643
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From: UK
Easyjet Spokesman - Rubbish Rostering System
Anyone from EZY want to comment?.
I thought EZY used AIMS (which is not rubbish) but then on the Pilot Network it suggests that "Carmen" is used for Trip planning.
Is this bolted onto AIMS or is Carmen doing everything??
I thought EZY used AIMS (which is not rubbish) but then on the Pilot Network it suggests that "Carmen" is used for Trip planning.
Is this bolted onto AIMS or is Carmen doing everything??
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 103
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From: Bedfordshire
mr angry from purley,
Correct we do use aims, however someone somewhere thought it would be a good idea to trial carmen, just at the rostering stage.
Personally i think it is a bag of !!!!! and it has caused day to day crewing, ops and crews no end of !!!!! and roster changes.
but thats only my opinion and there are bound to be guy's and girl's out there that think it's the beez neez !
Correct we do use aims, however someone somewhere thought it would be a good idea to trial carmen, just at the rostering stage.
Personally i think it is a bag of !!!!! and it has caused day to day crewing, ops and crews no end of !!!!! and roster changes.
but thats only my opinion and there are bound to be guy's and girl's out there that think it's the beez neez !
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 44
Likes: 2
From: Leicestershire
As an ex - 'World's Fave Airline' employee, I can confirm that they use Carmen for trip builds. However, it is 'cost effective' based provided that the the airline runs smoothly! (Now find me one of those if you can!) The downside is exactly what has happened at EZY; the aircraft/Flight Crew/Cabin Crew aren't rostered to follow each other around because they all have different cost restraints. The result - chaos when any of the three factors has a delay! 
Let's consider keeping the system simple and logical. Surely the initial cost implications will far outweigh the actual cost of recovering the mess, not to mention hacked-off staff, both ground and air crew!
Let's consider keeping the system simple and logical. Surely the initial cost implications will far outweigh the actual cost of recovering the mess, not to mention hacked-off staff, both ground and air crew!
Alba Gu Brath
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 745
Likes: 3
From: Merseyside
Excuse me for stating the obvious, but didn't anybody test Carmen before it was put live. If they did then surely someone must have seen the patterns it was churning out and said something. If the system wasn't tested then EZY have only themselves to blame.
It is ludicrous in a short haul, quick T/R operation to have crews splitting up half way through a duty day. Just my tuppence ha'penny worth.
It is ludicrous in a short haul, quick T/R operation to have crews splitting up half way through a duty day. Just my tuppence ha'penny worth.
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 165
Likes: 0
From: England
We used to manually generate crew rosters using Excel - narrow the columns to represent hours, use one colour per route and below the 'routes' part, you aligned the crews/crew members.
You could also enter set 'blocks' for crew rest/time off and, when it all fell apart, see at a glance how many crews you could juggle to legally complete the job. Don't know how many crews you guys have but we did it with 50+ at times. I'd like to see how you guys do it if someone wants to invite me for a visit
Simple and effective and didn't leave it to a computer to screw up. I also reckon an Excel whizz could fully automate it too.
You could also enter set 'blocks' for crew rest/time off and, when it all fell apart, see at a glance how many crews you could juggle to legally complete the job. Don't know how many crews you guys have but we did it with 50+ at times. I'd like to see how you guys do it if someone wants to invite me for a visit
Simple and effective and didn't leave it to a computer to screw up. I also reckon an Excel whizz could fully automate it too.
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 1,643
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From: UK
FOMeretoEternity
50% of trip planning is common sense.
Do you roster as many crews to max FDP or just a few?
Do you roster to reduce costly night stops or not?
My guess is EZY are short on Crews as well and the two didn't
mix.
They need the Go input asap
50% of trip planning is common sense.
Do you roster as many crews to max FDP or just a few?
Do you roster to reduce costly night stops or not?
My guess is EZY are short on Crews as well and the two didn't
mix.
They need the Go input asap
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 165
Likes: 0
From: England
Mr Angry,
I'm not saying it's dead easy, but once you crack it and take into account all the parameters, a human can often do better than a computer.
We didn't have the cost constraints, but maximum utilisation was always in the background. I'd genuinly be interested to see how you guys do things, cause we didn't have to cope with as many fiscal realities. That said, with the right bloke and the right assets, I say again, it's not rocket science, just intense
In some ways I don't envy you, but in others I'd love to sort that kind of mess out...
I'm not saying it's dead easy, but once you crack it and take into account all the parameters, a human can often do better than a computer.
We didn't have the cost constraints, but maximum utilisation was always in the background. I'd genuinly be interested to see how you guys do things, cause we didn't have to cope with as many fiscal realities. That said, with the right bloke and the right assets, I say again, it's not rocket science, just intense
In some ways I don't envy you, but in others I'd love to sort that kind of mess out...
Alba Gu Brath
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 745
Likes: 3
From: Merseyside
An Excel whizz could do it, and is has been done. Most of the mid-range crew planning systems on the market (AIMS, RM, Carmen, etc) are nothing more than glorified Excel spreadsheets with fancy colours.
Total reliance on a computer system to perform crew planning is very dangerous. There must be a human input into the process to sense check what the pc is churning out. Also, any optimisation process relies on an operater to set the parameters. If the user doesn't understand the parameters and how to set them then the results will be pants. You can't just install the program, set the parameters once and expect to get perfect results til the end of time !!!
Total reliance on a computer system to perform crew planning is very dangerous. There must be a human input into the process to sense check what the pc is churning out. Also, any optimisation process relies on an operater to set the parameters. If the user doesn't understand the parameters and how to set them then the results will be pants. You can't just install the program, set the parameters once and expect to get perfect results til the end of time !!!
Joined: May 1999
Posts: 748
Likes: 0
From: Vancouver, BC.
EZY rostering staff do an excellent job most of which is manual, I'd hold them up against any rostering team in any airline. They have managed the rapid expansion of a low cost airline for the past four years at rate rate that would make your head spin. We did under estimate the operational impact of the precision pairing using Carmen, a mistake others have made, but it's not as easy to anticipate that as you might think, however lessons has been learned. We did indeed test it and had been working with Carmen since last year before we brought it in for the operational trial in June.
JB007, AIMS have developed a pairing generator but we are not using it, we were working with Carmen before it was released.
Rostering is of course the end product of many factors which sit outside of the rostering group, like the schedule, utilisation policy, collective agreements etc. etc., and I have no doubt the human touch is here to stay for quite sometime.
JB007, AIMS have developed a pairing generator but we are not using it, we were working with Carmen before it was released.
Rostering is of course the end product of many factors which sit outside of the rostering group, like the schedule, utilisation policy, collective agreements etc. etc., and I have no doubt the human touch is here to stay for quite sometime.
