TPAC Operations

What is TPAC Operations?

TPAC^TM Operations is designed for monitoring and updating aircraft schedules. This real-time system affords the user a highly visual multi screen Gantt environment and advanced tools to enable a small number of operations controllers to support large airlines with diverse international and domestic marketplaces.

About TPAC Operations

TPAC^TM Operations provides the means to manage all aspects of aircraft operations from the time the schedule is published to the time the flights have completed.

TPAC^TM Operations handles the workflows associated with airline operations including:

• Real time aircraft movement updates
• Real time handling of operational changes
• Schedule recovery optimization tools
• Reporting and KPIs for the end of operations monitoring

The main graphical display is a real-time, automatically updating Gantt chart of the current aircraft operations. The Gantt quickly highlights current operational events and problems and allows the operator to easily see where attention is required.

When presented with a problem, the user can create many solutions and save them as a "what if" model. These models can be shared across the organization, and once an appropriate solution is found and agreed upon, the model can be published to the real world. Solutions can be created manually, or with the help of TPAC^TM Schedule Recovery, the automatic schedule recovery module which is fully integrated with TPAC^TM Operations. Solutions can also be compared by cost for crew, passengers and operational constraints.

To ensure efficient operations, information and tools are presented to the user to ensure the best operational decisions are made. By allowing feeds from many systems, the user has at their fingertips enough information to ensure the decisions made by the operations are the best for the whole business.

The operations control process runs through several phases, and can best be described in the following diagram.

Figure 1. Flow chart showing different stages of operations control

The main work area of TPAC^TM Operations is the Gantt Chart; a graphic representation of aircraft movements. It represents time along the horizontal axis and lists aircraft down the vertical axis.

Figure 2. Gantt chart and control panel

Typically, a display would consist of a number of aircraft fleet units, which are grouped together and readily identified by color coded flight and aircraft blocks. Aircraft operating patterns are represented by a horizontal line of time proportional Flight blocks (sectors or legs) which are linked by Port blocks (ground time). Aircraft registration information is shown in Aircraft blocks.

Figure 3. Example of a section of the Gantt chart

Functions

Tail Assignment

• Utilisation Sort: The utilization sort function is a general tail assignment engine used to assign flights to a registration. It optimally assigns legs to a specific pattern based on two variations, last in - first out or first in - first out. The last in - first out option sorts legs such that the most recently arrived leg in a port is the first to leave; the first-in - first-out option sorts legs such that the earliest leg to arrive in a port is the earliest to leave. The utilization sort is designed to optimise the aircraft's utilization based on standard operational parameters such as aircraft maintenance and aircraft restrictions. These restrictions are managed using the fully customizable dynamic constraints.

• Sort Bases: The Sort Bases function is used in the planning environment. Sort Bases is used to align overnight ports and assign registrations.

• Tentative Allocations: Users that are not authorized to publish tail assignments can make "tentative" allocations of legs to aircraft. The allocation is marked as a tentative allocation, and can be confirmed as a real allocation by a user with a higher level of authorization.

Models and Publication

• Local Changes: Changes made by a user are local until they are published. These changes can be used to perform "what if" scenarios on a given problem without affecting the real world. Alerts are raised with any local changes such that the user can see the effect of their changes before they are published.

• Undo: The user can undo any local, unpublished change, either a single change at a time or in bulk.

• Models: A user can save their local set of changes to a saved model. Saved models can be viewed and loaded by other users, and used to vet overall solutions for publishing. Once a user is happy with a model, it can be published. Once published, every other TPAC^TM Operations screen will instantly see these changes and be automatically updated.

• Quick Publish: TPAC^TM Operations has a "quick publish" feature which allows the user to make small changes easily. For example, if all a user needs to do is retime a sector by 5 minutes to allow for a minimum turnaround time violation, they can simply select the sector, use the "Retime By +5 Minutes" shortcut and will be presented with the quick publish screen, ready for publishing. This feature can be turned on or off as the user requires.

• Conflict Resolution: Updates to the real world are sent to all TPAC^TM Operations systems at the one time. If two users change a sector at the same time, the user who publishes their changes first will have their change published. The second user will be notified of this change and will need to respond accordingly.

System Monitoring

TPAC^TM Operations is able to monitor arrivals, departures and especially problems and potential problems, such as passenger or crew connections, curfew infringements and reduced ground times.

How TPAC Operation deals with disruptions

Consequential Delays

The consequential delays facility enables easy monitoring of potential problem legs when there has been a disruptive delay caused by events such as aircraft unavailability or weather. The operator can select legs which he considers to be likely to be affected by the delay, and create a consequential delay group which will be monitored by the consequential delays manager.

Connection Management

TPAC Operations supports advanced viewing of connections to ensure the operations controller makes appropriate decisions.

Passengers

Where available from external systems, TPAC^TM Operations displays onward and inward connections for passengers. Connection times are definable between different service types for each port, and TPAC^TM Operations shows alerts where the minimum connection time is violated.

Crew

Where available from external systems, TPAC^TM Operations displays onward and inward connections for crew. Maximum extension is defined Connection times are definable between different service types for each port, and TPAC^TM Operations shows alerts where the minimum connection time is violated.

Route Bookings

TPAC^TM Operations can search for spare seat capacity using the current network bookings if a change affects a passenger's ability to board their booked service.

Architecture

TPAC^TM Operations supports integration with a wide range of standard airline systems.

Input Data Feeds

The feeds and systems that TPAC^TM Operations can retrieve information from:

• Standard Flight Schedule
• Standard Flight Event Messaging
• Crew Pairings
• Passenger Loads
• Passenger Connections
• Maintenance Hours and Cycles
• Slot Management
• Weather
• General Telex Messaging
• Reference Data

Output Data Feeds

The feeds and systems that TPAC^TM Operations can send information to

• General Telex Messaging
• Standard Flight Event Messaging
• Schedule Change Model To External Systems For What-If Analysis

System Technology and Platforms

TPAC^TM Operations utilises a proven robust client/server architecture, and is natively supported on a wide range of platforms.

Supported Client Operating Systems

The TPAC^TM Operations client is natively supported on all standard desktop operating systems including:

• Windows Vista
• Windows XP
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (x86)
• Fedora Core Linux (x86)
• Solaris 10 (x86/x64/SPARC)

A web browser based view is available with the TPAC^TM OnLine.

Supported Server Operating Systems

Servers are typically run in a high availability clusters, and are therefore built on top of standard UNIX/Linux platforms.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (x86)
• Solaris 10 (x86/x64/SPARC)
• Solaris 8 (SPARC)

Integration Technology

TPAC^TM Operations can be integrated with external systems using many standard interface technologies. These include the following protocols:

• IBM MQ Series Queuing
• BEA Systems Tuxedo
• XML/SOAP Web Services
• Java JMS
• FTP
• Legacy TCP/IP

Integration can also be performed with other custom solutions such as the SAP NetWeaver product.

System Reliability and Scalability

• The client/server architecture allows for automatic system load balancing and automatic disaster failover.
• The system is designed for 100% uptime with hot standby a standard deployment configuration.
• The system is proven in airlines of 300+ aircraft and scalable to 500+ aircraft.