7 Day Scheduling

[Jake]

I finally started doing 7 day scheduling today and i gotta say, WHAT A DAMN PAIN TO SET UP WHEN YOU HAVE PASSED 100 AC's!!!
I have been sitting here now for around 6-7 hours straight trying to fill in all the gaps but it's almost impossible with all these time restrictions the Japanese airports have...
Not to mention the fact that those 6-7 hours is what it took me to re-schedule about 21 DC-9's out of 80+ DC-9's

That said i already see the benefits of doing it seeing as i already have freed up around 10 DC-9's from my fleet, not to mention lower staff need too...
Lesson learned, start doing 7 day scheduling from the moment you have 7 aircrafts from now on...

[NovemberCharlie]

Also 7 day scheduling is used most on longhaul flights, which makes it a lot easier to manage (4-7 flights per plane)

[Jake]

Also 7 day scheduling is used most on longhaul flights, which makes it a lot easier to manage (4-7 flights per plane)

That i already knew, the 741's were the first to schedule... The DC9's on the other hand have about 4-7 flights a day to schedule...

[Cardinal]

I just finished a game in Japan. You're not wrong about those stupid curfews 

Japan and Mexico have some of the most ridiculous curfews. 7-day scheduling is absolutely necessary, but when you run out of routes where you can overnight a plane it stops being helpful. You end up with a bunch of routes that can only run between 8AM and 5PM, and you can maybe fit two trips a day on one plane if your base has a later curfew.

[tyteen4a03]

I finally started doing 7 day scheduling today and i gotta say, WHAT A DAMN PAIN TO SET UP WHEN YOU HAVE PASSED 100 AC's!!!
I have been sitting here now for around 6-7 hours straight trying to fill in all the gaps but it's almost impossible with all these time restrictions the Japanese airports have...
Not to mention the fact that those 6-7 hours is what it took me to re-schedule about 21 DC-9's out of 80+ DC-9's

That said i already see the benefits of doing it seeing as i already have freed up around 10 DC-9's from my fleet, not to mention lower staff need too...
Lesson learned, start doing 7 day scheduling from the moment you have 7 aircrafts from now on...

A trick I like to use is by making back-to-back routes from the first plane so that everything fits together when you have all 7. e.g If you have route A that goes from 13:00 - 07:00+ on one plane, keep that and do 08:00 - 14:00 on the second, then 15:00 - 08:00 on the third (etc) and when the time comes, just put all routes back together. Make sure you create all route days as separate so you don't have to recreate the routes.

[Jake]

I just finished a game in Japan. You're not wrong about those stupid curfews 

Japan and Mexico have some of the most ridiculous curfews. 7-day scheduling is absolutely necessary, but when you run out of routes where you can overnight a plane it stops being helpful. You end up with a bunch of routes that can only run between 8AM and 5PM, and you can maybe fit two trips a day on one plane if your base has a later curfew.

I just had to park my plane overnight in Brussels to fit another flight in on the schedule, please tell me you guys think this is just getting stupid at this point...

[Luperco]

I feel uncomfortable when I had to make it wait for 7 hours 

That's for short haul. Waiting overnight for long haul is not an option for me. I rather find another destination (usually in the other direction)  that fits better. Or have a gap during the day that I can fill with a shorter flight.

[tyteen4a03]

I feel uncomfortable when I had to make it wait for 7 hours 

That's for short haul. Waiting overnight for long haul is not an option for me. I rather find another destination (usually in the other direction)  that fits better. Or have a gap during the day that I can fill with a shorter flight.

Only do it if you absolutely have to. Most of the time you don't need to do that. (And having lived in RJOO, I believe I have enough authority to say that :p)

[knobbygb]

I just had to park my plane overnight in Brussels to fit another flight in on the schedule, please tell me you guys think this is just getting stupid at this point...

I can't see how you'd ever have to do that! I would find another solution at all costs. Remember that arriving after midnight doesn't have TOO MUCH of a penalty on a mature route (as opposed to leaving very early in the morning. So I'd make that flight at least 5 hours later, arriving at 3am or 4am. It depends where it's originating of course.

I pretty much 7 day schedule anything that has 4 or fewer flights per day and usually have a total fleet utilisation between 18.5hr and 19hr. I think the biggest downtime I've EVER had on ANY completed 7 day schedule is probably 3hrs. You're right, 12+hrs is insane!

[tyteen4a03]

I can't see how you'd ever have to do that! I would find another solution at all costs. Remember that arriving after midnight doesn't have TOO MUCH of a penalty on a mature route (as opposed to leaving very early in the morning. So I'd make that flight at least 5 hours later, arriving at 3am or 4am. It depends where it's originating of course.

I pretty much 7 day schedule anything that has 4 or fewer flights per day and usually have a total fleet utilisation between 18.5hr and 19hr. I think the biggest downtime I've EVER had on ANY completed 7 day schedule is probably 3hrs. You're right, 12+hrs is insane!

Would definitely not recommend landing between 0100 and 0459; 0000-0059 or 0500-0559 only if you have to.

[knobbygb]

I just meant that landing at that time seems not to cause as much problem as taking off then. Also that, given a choice, filling a 7 day schedule by allowing the odd flight to land at 3am is going to make more money than leaving big 12hr gaps in the schedule.

[Jake]

Would definitely not recommend landing between 0100 and 0459; 0000-0059 or 0500-0559 only if you have to.

The problem here is that the airport closes at 21:00 at opens at 07:00, and i literally can't find any other airport with enough demand for my 747 to fill that gap without a 10+ hour long stopover...

[tyteen4a03]

The problem here is that the airport closes at 21:00 at opens at 07:00, and i literally can't find any other airport with enough demand for my 747 to fill that gap without a 10+ hour long stopover...

You just have to factor this in when planning routes. Always aim to create red-eye flights (where the plane spends the night at another airport, coming back to your base early morning), and try to fly to the same continent for all your routes as this makes departure/arrival times more consistent.

Also for RJOO I find 747s an overkill for foreign routes. TriStars or DC-10 should work better.

[Jake]

You just have to factor this in when planning routes. Always aim to create red-eye flights (where the plane spends the night at another airport, coming back to your base early morning), and try to fly to the same continent for all your routes as this makes departure/arrival times more consistent.

Also for RJOO I find 747s an overkill for foreign routes. TriStars or DC-10 should work better.

All my routes with the 747's is at 90+ LF, so i wouldn't call it overkill...

[tyteen4a03]

Well if it works for you...