Roster Creation

The main output of the roster creation process are the rosters to be send to the crew (hence the name).

Many airlines have different frequencies in which this is done and also varying length of the published rosters. Most common rostering frequency is monthly with monthly rosters, but many variations on this are known.

Roster creation used to be a manual action, originally using pencil/pen and paper, later using the various rostering/tracking tools available. Nowadays most airlines use either automation, optimization or a combination thereof to create the rosters.

Rostering Input

Input to this process can be the following:

• Flight Schedule
• Crew with their qualifications
• Pairings
• Standby blocks/Reserve lines
• Assignable (recurrent) training sessions
• Pre-assigned activities. These can be:
  • Annual leave, assigned in the Manpower Planning process
  • Training activities (simulators, line training and ground duties), assigned in the training planning process
  • Granted requests
  • Planned sick codes (sick long term and planned doctor visits for instance)
  • Etc.
• Crew data
  • Qualification data
  • Expiry dates
  • Rank
  • Visa and Passport data
  • Data on vaccination
  • Historic data (e.g. Cosmic Radiation exposure in the previous months)
  • Any restriction or preferences
  • Etc.
• Requests and/or bids
• Rules and constraints

This list is far from being complete. Every airline will have their own data that the roster creation needs to consider that other airlines probably do not need to consider.

Crew Influence

The roster dictates the work/life balance of the crew. But not only the crew but also their surroundings like friends and family. If the crew does not have any influence on how the roster is created this will severely impact their social life and therefore their well-being. Methods of influence a crewmember has on the roster creation are:

Requests and Bids

The difference between a request and a bid is the timing of the award. For a request, one gets the feedback on the success of the request before the moment that the rosters are published. This is usually immediately after making the request, or within a number of days. A bid is considered while the rosters are created and as such is always published to the crew along with the remainder of the roster. There are various way in which we specify and award the requests and the bids. Some of those are:

• Bid lines
• Strict seniority bidding
• Weighted fair-share bidding
• Lifestyle bids
• Scheduling Preferences

Self-Rostering

Some airlines give crew the option to actively add components to their roster. This could be flights, standby, training, or whatever else.

Union Agreements

Through the labor agreements agreed between the airlines and the unions additional rules can be implemented that are on top of the rules imposed by the regulator. These rules typically influence the rosters created. These could apply to all crew or to a specific set of crew only. E.g. some airlines have agreed to create rosters that allow mothers with small babies time to take care of them.

Fairness

It is important that while creating the rosters we are dividing the work in a well-balanced manner. This is called fairness.

There are various components we might want to distribute fairly amongst our crew. This fair distribution is sometimes done within the same published period but more often it is done over a longer period like a number of months. In the latter case it is fine if for instance Crew A has more night flights this month as Crew B as long as they both do roughly comparable number of night flights over a period of 4 months.

Elements we may distribute fairly amongst our crew are:

• Fair distribution of block hours
• Fair distribution of night duties
• Fair bids reward distribution
• Fair number of ULR flights
• Fair distribution of deadhead duties
• Fair distribution of credit or equivalent hours

Other Elements to Consider in Rostering

Apart from legality, fairness, and crew influence there are numerous other components to consider while creating the rosters. In this we can think of the following:

• How many days off do we have to give to the crew?
• Can crew fly below (or even above) rank?
• What is their level of exposure to cosmic radiation?
• Are they due for recurrent trainings?
• Are they recent, or need to be kept recent, for certain destinations? (especially important for Cat-C stations)
• Do they require a visa and have minimum remaining passport validity for this station?
• Do they require a vaccination for a station/country?
• Do they require a RAT or PCR test to enter this country?
• What is their alertness level during top of decent on this flight?
• When is this crew member likely to take their rest during a flight with inflight rest?
• What is the most likely sleep pattern between flights or between two pairings for a crew member?
• What is the general experience level on board this flight?
• How many trainee crew may we have during a flight?
• Are there any language or nationality constraints?

To ascertain the alertness level of a crewmember during the course of the published period some airlines use a Bio Mathematical Model. Several vendors provide such tools. Some can be integrated with an optimizer while others are only used in the rostering tool to validate a created roster.

Publication and Handover

Once the rostering department has completed the creation of the rosters, the rosters are published. This has two major results:

• Crew get to see the published rosters.
• The rosters are handed over to the Pre-ops or Crew Control department. From that moment onwards Crew Control is responsible for the maintenance of these rosters.

The handover of the rosters from the Rostering department to Pre-Ops/Crew Control should be a formal moment. It quite often also means importing the rosters in another tool. Some airlines require that in this hand-over all pairings have been assigned to the crew and that all rosters are legal, while other airlines allow, or even require a certain number of unassigned activities in this hand-over.