Airline schedule planning that fixes every break before the schedule reaches sale
Every break fixed before the schedule reaches sale, with the smallest shift and why.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Airline schedule planning is building the seasonal flight schedule, checking it and publishing it as an SSIM file, then republishing changes every week while the season is on sale. Airline Schedule Planning is schedule planning software with seven agents that build each weekly version from the network plan, check every record against minimum connect times, gates, slots, curfews, crew pairings and maintenance lines, propose the smallest shift for each break and find the customers it changes. The scheduler decides every shift and the Director of Scheduling signs every publication.
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In airline schedule planning, every airline rebuilds its schedule for each IATA season and republishes it every week while the season is already on sale. A network carrier's season holds about ten thousand flight records, and one weekly version changes hundreds of them: new routes, retimes, equipment changes, a bank moved five minutes, an acquired airline's flights renumbered into your own.
Each change can break something the airline scheduling software does not show. A connection under the minimum connect time that reservations will never sell. Two widebodies on one heavy gate. A flight outside its Level 3 slot or inside a Sunday curfew. A crew pairing that no longer fits its duty limits, or a tail that no longer overnights where its check is done. The breaks are found late, by other teams, after the version is published, and the reason for each time change is lost by the next version.
Estimated split for one weekly version at a network carrier, by hand and with the solution.
Seven agents build, check and fix every version, each shift cross-checked by three; the scheduler decides and the Director signs.
Corvane Airways is building its summer 2027 IATA season schedule. Network plan release NP-27.3 has turned into version 15: 9,418 flight-leg records, 412 of them changed against last week's v14, due for publication on Thursday, October 22. Here is the week, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Maya's Today screen shows 63 breaks found in version 15, 0 of 63 decided, 1,006 connections a week at risk and Thursday's publication that Owen Castellanos signs. The shift agent leads: 24 connections, 11 gates, 9 slots, 4 curfews, 8 crew and 7 maintenance breaks. Below it, what needs her: B-04 at ORD bank 4, 38 low-risk shifts ready to accept together, 18 to review one by one and 7 breaks with no clean shift.
Shift agent: “Version 15 has 63 breaks. I have a shift for 56 of them.”
The hub view draws ORD's typical Wednesday as waves of arrivals and departures, 412 departures in 8 banks, with a marker on each bank holding its open breaks. Bank 4 has five. The biggest: CV 1220 from Denver lands at 14:05 and CV 88 to Tokyo Narita leaves at 14:40, 35 minutes against the filed 45-minute domestic-to-international connect. The shift agent proposes CV 88 ten minutes later, 14:50, arriving NRT 18:35: 212 connections a week back on sale, 6,572 over the 31-week season.
“Move CV 88 ten minutes later. 212 connections a week come back.”
The connections agent confirms no new break. The airport constraints agent finds ORD gate C18 free until 15:35, 18:35 on the Narita coordinator's available list with a change request drafted, and Narita's midnight close 5 h 25 min away. The crew and maintenance agent puts pairing P-7741 at 14 h 15 of duty against a 17-hour limit with four pilots. The customer impact agent finds 9,842 passengers booked on CV 88 over the season, for whom a 10-minute change is not significant. Maya asks why not move the Denver flight instead.
Shift agent: “Because Denver pays for it. CV 1220 leaving DEN at 10:10 instead of 10:20 departs before four bank 2 arrivals connect: 61 connections a week lost.”
Accept opens the decision: the break, the shift and three reason codes — S1 smallest shift, all checks passed; S2 edited shift; S3 accept with a known exception, which the Director co-signs. Maya picks S1, adds a note if she wants one, and signs as herself. The season builder applies the shift to version 15 and marks the SSIM file for re-validation.
Low-risk means 5 minutes or less with no slot, gate or customer effect, and every one already passed the connections, airport and crew and maintenance agents. The decision lists them — CV 1745 three minutes later at ORD bank 1, CV 920 to gate C19 with no time change, a tail swap at bank 3 — and Maya accepts all 38 with one reason code and one signature. Her time goes to the 18 that need a look and the 7 that need a person.
Only low-risk shifts can be accepted together; the others are opened one by one.
CV 97 from London Heathrow lands at 08:15 and CV 1408 to Washington National leaves at 09:30, 75 minutes against the 90-minute international-to-domestic connect. Moving CV 1408 needs a DCA slot that is not free; moving CV 97 earlier needs an LHR slot that is not free. The agent shows the options — protect the 96 a week on CV 1420, or keep the break — and hands the decision to Owen Castellanos.
Shift agent: “I found no shift that passes every check, so this one is yours.”
Network plan NP-27.3 moved ORD bank 6 five minutes later for the Frankfurt and London departures. The airport constraints agent draws concourse C's heavy gates for that bank: four widebodies need them between 17:55 and 18:25 and only three are free. The proposal moves CV 924 to gate M14 in terminal 5, five minutes later. Tasha Greene, the hub operations planner, sees every gate break with its smallest fix.
The SSIM agent re-validated the file with 39 decisions applied: 0 errors, 2 warnings, both explained — one a renumbered segment missing its traffic restriction, one a new ORD–Athens record whose planned first flight, Thursday, June 3, is not a day of operation, so it was written from Friday, June 4. Owen signs with reason P1, weekly publication. 388 changed records go out; the 24 breaks still open stay at their v14 values until decided.
Only the Director of Scheduling signs a publication.
The SSIM Chapter 7 file goes to reservations, two schedule distributors and the FAA's Level 2 schedule review; change messages go to six codeshare partners; slot change requests go to the NRT, FRA and LHR coordinators. Five of six recipients acknowledge. Schedule distributor 2 is still waiting, and the agent escalates any recipient that has not acknowledged within 4 hours.
The customer impact agent matched 14,286 booked passengers on 2,118 flight-dates to the version's changes: 12,904 move less than an hour, 1,207 between an hour and three, and 175 are significant under Part 260. A nonstop to Rome replaced by a connection through Frankfurt counts whatever the time. Notices were drafted in plain words, held until the Director signed and sent with the publication, so schedule change management starts before the first complaint, not after it.
“A significant change — 3 hours domestic, 6 hours international, a different airport, an added connection, a downgrade — gives the passenger a refund if they don't accept it.”
The same weekly version, seen by five of the people who carry it: what Thursday looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven agents build, check and fix every version, each shift cross-checked by three; the scheduler decides and the Director signs.
Turns a network plan release into a draft version of the season — flight legs, times, days of operation, periods and aircraft types — and applies each shift a person accepts.
Builds every connection at each hub against the filed minimum connect times — 34,800 a day at ORD and DEN in the sample — and counts the booked and forecast connecting passengers on each.
Checks heavy gates at the hubs, Level 3 slots and coordinator capacity, and curfews and night restrictions by day of week, and drafts the slot change request a shift needs.
Re-runs draft crew pairings against flight and duty limits and maintenance lines for every tail, so a retime that breaks a layover or a check overnight is found the same night.
Searches for the smallest shift — fewest minutes on the fewest flights — that fixes each break, sends each option to the three checking agents and explains the trade-off, including the options that failed and why.
Builds the IATA SSIM Chapter 7 file, validates every record, compares it with last week's version, drafts change messages, and after signature publishes and tracks every acknowledgment.
Matches booked passengers to every changed record, applies the significant-change test of 14 CFR Part 260 and drafts the notices in plain words.
Decides every shift; the Director of Scheduling signs each publication; the SVP co-signs plan changes. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask why a shift was chosen, or tell the agents what to try instead. Every answer cites the record, the connect-time standard, the slot list, the pairing or the rule it came from.
Which break costs the most connections?
B-04 at ORD bank 4: CV 1220 → CV 88 is 35 minutes against 45, and 212 connections a week depend on it. Next is B-11 (118 a week) and B-22 (96 a week, no clean shift).
Why not move CV 1220 earlier?
Because Denver pays for it. CV 1220 leaving DEN at 10:10 instead of 10:20 departs before four bank 2 arrivals connect: 61 connections a week lost, and gate B32 is still occupied until 10:15. Moving CV 88 costs nothing at ORD: gate C18 is free until 15:35.
What does the NRT slot change need?
A change request to the coordinator: CV 88's arrival moves from 18:25 to 18:35, which is on the available list. It is drafted and goes only when Henrik Aalto, the slot and airport affairs manager, approves it. The return CV 87 keeps its 20:10 departure, a 95-minute turn against 80.
Why is the FCO change significant if the time is close?
Because it adds a connection: a nonstop becomes a connection through Frankfurt, which the rule counts as significant whatever the time. 46 passengers get the refund choice.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The thresholds the agents work to and who approves what are settings. A change is proposed, takes effect when the Director approves it, and is on the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum shift the agent may propose | 20 minutes | Set in minutes; approved by the Director |
| Low-risk shift (can be accepted together) | 5 minutes or less, no slot, gate or customer effect | Minutes and effects; approved by the Director |
| Company connect-time buffer | 0 minutes over the filed standard | Minutes added to the filed minimum connect times |
| Curfew buffer | 15 minutes (NRT 30) | Minutes, with airport-specific values |
| Minimum turn · 787-9 international | 80 minutes | Minutes by fleet (737-8: 40 minutes) |
| Who accepts shifts | Schedule Planner or Hub Operations Planner | Any role in Roles and permissions |
| Co-sign | SVP Network Planning when a market, frequency or gauge changes | Role and the changes that need it |
| Separation of duties | Whoever accepts a shift cannot sign the publication alone | Proposed as a rule change; approved by the Director |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample season · “estimated” = our estimate ($4.2M = 212 connections a week × 31 weeks × $640 average connecting fare, on the fictional carrier's ORD bank 4; the hours in “where a weekly version's working hours go”) · “typical” = published rules and standards (14 CFR Part 260 on significant changes and refunds, effective October 28, 2024; IATA SSIM Chapter 7 on the schedule file). People, Corvane Airways, Bellwether Air, flight numbers, tails and pairings named on this page are fictional: characters and sample data in the working solution.
Airline schedule planning is building the seasonal flight schedule, checking it and publishing it as an SSIM file, then republishing changes every week while the season is on sale. Airline Schedule Planning is schedule planning software with seven agents that build each weekly version from the network plan, check every record against minimum connect times, gates, slots, curfews, crew pairings and maintenance lines, propose the smallest shift for each break and find the customers it changes. The scheduler decides every shift and the Director of Scheduling signs every publication.
In this solution, the connections agent builds every connection at each hub against the filed minimum connect time (MCT) for its type — at ORD in the sample, 40 minutes domestic to domestic and 45 domestic to international. A connection under its connect time is a break placed on its hub bank, with the connections a week it costs. The agent never lowers a connect time or files an exception.
An SSIM file is the schedule file in the IATA Standard Schedules Information Manual's Chapter 7 format, the one airlines use to send their schedule to reservations, distributors and partners. The SSIM agent builds it from the version, validates record length and type, periods, days of operation, local times and UTC variation, aircraft types, segment data and duplicate legs, and compares it with last week's published version. It publishes only after the Director signs, sends change messages to partners and tracks every acknowledgment.
The customer impact agent matches every booking to the version's changed records and applies 14 CFR Part 260's test: 3 hours domestic, 6 hours international, a different airport, an added connection or a downgrade. Significant changes are listed before publication with notices drafted, and the notices send only with the publication. The agent never decides a refund.
A retime can park two widebodies on one heavy gate, move an arrival out of its Level 3 slot or into a curfew, break a crew layover or duty limit, or take a tail away from the station where its check is done. The airport constraints agent checks heavy gates at the hubs, Level 3 slots and coordinator capacity, and curfews by day of week, and drafts slot change requests that wait for approval. The crew and maintenance agent re-runs draft pairings against duty limits and maintenance lines for every tail. Every proposed shift must pass all three checking agents before a scheduler sees it.
Yes. The agents propose and explain; a scheduler accepts, edits or rejects every shift with a reason code and an e-signature. The Director of Scheduling signs every publication, open breaks are held back at their last published values, and the SVP Network Planning co-signs any change to a market, frequency or gauge.
Yes. The maximum shift the agent may propose, what counts as low-risk, the connect-time and curfew buffers, minimum turns by fleet, who accepts shifts, who signs and co-signs, and separation of duties are all settings. A change takes effect when the Director approves it and is on the audit trail.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your hub and bank structure, connect-time standards, scheduling rules and a recent SSIM file — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on one of your own weekly versions first.
One more point of revenue per flight, and no seat change posted without an analyst's yes.
1-min demoAirline Fare FilingEvery filing shopped before it publishes, so a mistake fare never reaches a shopper.
1-min demoCompetitive Fare MonitoringEach morning, the five rival moves worth money, with the captures that prove them.
1-min demoWe'll run Airline Schedule Planning on one of your own weekly versions and its last published SSIM file.