ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how airlines plan their operations on a strategic and tactical level. It discusses the elements of airline planning separately in the coming sections, but in real life various elements are interrelated, and all with their own constraints, making airline planning a compromise by definition. Airlines based at large home-airports can serve different markets with a mix of short- and long-haul connections, operated by a mixed fleet of narrow and wide bodies. An airline’s schedule is both its value proposition to the markets, as well as the blueprint for production. Schedule planning therefore is a core activity for an airline, and needs to be aligned with the airline’s network strategy. In strategic fleet planning we need to consider two elements: fleet composition – what aircraft types the airline has in its fleet – and fleet size – how many of a type the airline operates.
