CrewPlan is a solution framework for airline qualification management. It enables users to plan, track and manage the various events and data which comprise the airline's training and qualification programs.

Crew planners/schedulers are the typical users of CrewPlan.

This video shows a demonstration of the CrewPlan application: http://www.screencast.com/t/kgEYGVV18

Log in to CrewPlan

With your merlot.aero credentials, log in and select CrewPlan.

CrewPlan Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for CrewPlan, however, qualifications have to be created and crew must be associated with a course before training can be assigned.

The Graphical User Interface (GUI)

The merlot.aero suite of applications eliminates the use of text commands by employing a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Let’s explore the CrewPlan GUI:

Allocation Gantt: Crew member assignments are displayed and allocated here
Course Gantt: Displays the courses allocated for each day
Monitoring Panel: Identify and monitor changes that could result in legal violations or problems
Pairing Panel: View and modify the details of the pairings
Rule Limit Summaries: Displays the cumulative flight and duty hours until a certain date
Course Panel: Contains the facility to modify course instances
Activity Panel: List of pairings, flights and activities that can be allocated to the crew

The next section discusses how qualifications are managed in CrewPlan. The succeeding sections discuss from a crew scheduler perspective how rosters are manipulated in the application. It may or may not be a task for training planners, but it is beneficial to know how the application works.

Glossary

Term	Definition

Term	Definition
Base	The port to which crewmembers are expected to commence and finish their tasks / activities.
Broken Pairing	A pairing that has any of the following characteristics: does not return to its start location; has events that conflict with the previous or next event's port; or has overlapping events within it. Note that there are other types of exceptions that indicate problem pairings, but these are broken in terms of structure rather than rule limits.
Certification	A type of qualification that the crew must renew on his own time. These do not need to be scheduled by the airline, but they are needed to keep the crew legal to fly. Examples of which are passports and pilot licenses.
Company Pairing	Also called Generic Pairing, Ground Pairing, Non-flight Pairing, Standard Pairing These are pre-defined non-flight pairings that can be allocated to crew. Examples of these are: Administration Days, Days Off, Annual Leave and Sick Leave. Also known as Standard Pairing or Generic Pairing.
Company Time	This refers to the time at which the pairing or event is occurring converted to the company’s base or headquarters location
Course Association	A direct link between a crewmember and a qualification that he or she needs to attend and pass in order to operate on a flight.
Course Instance	An occurrence of a course scheduled for a specific day, which is allocated to crewmembers’ rosters.
Covered Pairing	A pairing that has all complements filled.
Crew	A specific type of employee required for flight operations. This term is interchangeable with employee.
Crew Complement	The number and types of crew required for a pairing.
Currency Requirements	Also called recency requirements Pilots need to meet certain currency requirements in order to remain legal to operate. These can include instrument currency, night currency, various approach currencies, etc.
Department	The areas within an airline or company that are tasked with providing particular services of a similar type. For example, in an airline there are Flight Operations (i.e. the manning and operating of aircraft), Maintenance (ensure the aircraft were able to operate safely), and Ramp (the parking and coordination of aircraft resupply between flights).
Designator	Unique alphanumeric code given to distinguish each airline, or operations within an airline
Duty	A grouping of flights and / or activities that can be performed legally by a crew member during one work period. One or more duties combined together define a pairing.
Employee	The generic term for people who are trained to perform specific tasks/activities. Within Flight Operations, the employees are generally referred to as crew or crewmembers; and within Maintenance, the employees are generally referred to as engineers, mechanics, avionic technicians etc.
Equipment Group	The grouping of a similar set of equipment types. For example, a 737 which could be comprised of 733 and 734 equipment types. This can also be used as a reference to indicate the equipment types that a crewmember is legal to operate on as part of his rating.
Equipment Type	Also called aircraft type. Model of the aircraft. A specific type of aircraft that has distinct characteristics, for example a 733 or 734. This can also be used as a reference to indicate the equipment types that a crewmember is legal to operate on as part of his rating.
Flight	Also called sector The transport taken from a departure point to an arrival point.
Flight Complement	The number and types of crew required to operate a flight.
Flight Pairing	A pairing that contains at least one operating flight.
Ground Pairing	A pairing that contains only ground activities. No operating or deadheading flights are included.
Local Time	The time at the location at which the pairing or event is occurring. If the location is the same or in the same time zone as the company base or headquarters location this time will be the same as the company value.
Open Pairing	A pairing that has at least one complement still requiring a crew member to be assigned.
Pairing	The generic unit of work and non-work that can be assigned to a crew member. A pairing is comprised of none, one or more flights and/or activities grouped together into one or more duties. A pairing may span over multiple days. One or more duties combined together define a pairing. A pairing is from home base to home base so it can encompass a number of duties each with individual report and release times. In this way pairings can span a single or multiple days. Pairings are usually built for all crew that carry out identical work. For instance the Captain, the First Officer and the Flight Attendants, who all stay together, will be on the same pairing. To ensure consistency and simplicity of allocation a Pairing will be the only unit of activity that can be assigned to a crew member. There are some exceptions to this but in general this concept applies across the suite of applications.
Pairing Complement	The required number of employees of each rank that are needed to fully operate that pairing.
Port	An airport or station
Port Currency	Also called port recency Some ports are categorized to have a more difficult method of landing and takeoff. For these ports, pilots are required to operate to and from the port more frequently, thus they need to be current for the port. In some cases, they need to land and takeoff once every 90 days.
Problem	Non-rule based exceptions generated by the Problem Detection Engine (PDE), such as incorrect report/release times, illogical flight/pairing data, and crew complement issues.
Puck	The graphical representation of a flight or pairing in a Gantt chart.
Rank	The core qualification that an employee holds which defines the level/type of tasks and activities they can perform. For example Captain, First Officer, Flight Attendant.
Rating (or Type Rating)	Defines the combination of equipment and position that personnel can legally operate. In merlot, the characteristics that define a rating are: Rank, and Equipment Group.
Recurrent Training	Training requirement that needs to be retaken frequently and is necessary for a crew member to remain legal to operate a flight
Roster	A roster is simply a defined period of time within which the crew member’s work and non-work assignments are defined.
Roster Period	The date range in which a set of work and other activities is to be performed
Route Currency	Also called route recency Some routes are categorized to have a more difficult operation. For these ports, pilots are required to operate the route more frequently, thus they need to be current for the port. In some cases, they need to operate the route once every 90 days.
Violation	Any breach of a configured rule that has been generated by the merlot RulesEngine. Rules are generally configured to enforce published regulatory requirements from government agencies and other company rules as defined in the airline's operations manual.
Violation Behavior	This determines what can be done to a violation once it is flagged. This works in conjunction with violation severity. Inviolate - does not allow the assignment to push through no matter what Override - if the user has the appropriate security rights, he can override the violation Override Disrupt - if the user has the appropriate security rights, he can override the violation only if the flight is in disrupt Track - the user can proceed with the roster changes but the violation is retained for tracking purposes. The violation will not have a pop up, but will be visible in the Violation Panel. Ignore - the violations are retained in the Violation Panel
Violation Override	This determines how a violation should be overridden Management - the credentials of a management-level user must supply his credentials when overriding the violation Supervisor - a supervisor must supply his credentials when overriding the violation Extension - a user with override rights must supply his credentials when overriding the violation which consequentially allows an extension to the flight hours, duty hours and/or flight duty period Discretion - signifies that the violation will be overridden based on the captain's discretion
Violation Severity	This determines how a violation is presented Critical - the violation must be addressed. Otherwise, the crew is illegal to fly Ignorable - the violation can be addressed later and will not prevent the crew from reporting for a duty Informational - the rule breach is for informational purposes only Passed - the rule is not breached and nothing has to be done