Flight planning description
Describe the sequence of activities that you typically perform in developing and filing a flight plan. Include your goals in flight planning, the constraints that you must consider, the information you need and its source, and other stakeholders that are part of the flight planning process [interviewee should be queried for each bolded item repeatedly during discussion].
Flight plan: Flight plan includes climb and descent profile, cruising altitude (includes performance at several altitudes), speed, alternates, flight no., equipment, time of departure, route of flight, total in-flight time, burn (include 8 minutes taxi), pax, reserve fuel, total fuel, MEL items, CDO (configuration deviation that might affect performance), remarks (e.g., what to expect at destination, jump seat riders, etc.). Engines, flap settings, temperatures, winds, preferred runways for takeoff and landings (this could change if winds shift, so there will be a difference between plan and optimal real time flight).
Activities:
Flight planning starts as soon as shift starts. Sequence -- Look at night before, turnover log, night dispatchers briefing, NOTAMS, winds, weather, ATC advisories, unusual things that need special attention -- try to get big picture of where equipment is, does it make sense, what is projected flow, maintenance reqts, pax and luggage reqts, etc. Often times full pax load and luggage load (e.g., during Christmas or golf season) will dictate which equipage is used (e.g., their “hush-kitted” aircraft have less range or greater weight constraints). All this is to try to get a handle on equipment allocation for the day’s flights. Are there company mandates, who is the crew (e.g., some crews are more willing to take an aircraft without the Autopilot). Part of big picture is Charter flights, which have some weird requirements in terms of destinations, so have to look at fuel prices, unique aspects of those flights, etc. (note: Flight crew doesn’t always have big picture of why some of these decisions are made in terms of equipment, optimal route planning. Crews are a little more in dark without FMS’s. Rely on dispatch more heavily.)
Once equipment is set, they try to start flight planning for a particular flight 90 minutes to 2 hours ahead of time, and try to get plan filed 60 minutes before flight. They don’t like to start planning further than 2 hours ahead of time because things can change so much. They have a dispatcher alert on display that tells them when to get going on flight plan for particular flight. They also have alerts in systems that will tell when airports go below minimums, TFU advisories, weather advisories, etc. They have 3rd-party software that actually does the flight planning (Jeppesen, I think). They have all the numbers for their aircraft (from Douglas -- big books that show performance depending on engine, model, etc.) -- information on the departure and destination airports, alternates, winds, equipment, etc., are input, and the program figures out optimal flight plans from a fuel burn perspective (speeds, altitudes, climb & descend profiles, runways, etc.). Lots of factors to consider in each part of plan -- for example, with alternates, they look at weather, which airports they have agreements with for refueling, what the fuel prices are, how easy they are to get in and out of, etc. They don’t like to list Atlanta as an alternate for example, because they can be waiting on the ground for a couple of hours to get refueled because Delta gets priority from the fuel providers. Wasn’t clear to me whether constraints could be entered into software program for lateral route planning, or if that is done by hand. Big difference from aircraft to aircraft. The flight plan will actually show $0 default in terms of optimal altitude, and show extra $$ for flying different altitudes (e.g., 33000 - $0, 31000 - $153). Fuel estimates are based on straight-in distances from A to B. Flight plan is automatically sent to center and printed. Usually a matter of minutes before ATC responds that it is filed. Crew can’t pick it up until 30 minutes before flight- center sends it to departure control, crew on ground picks up departure clearance 30 minutes before flight. Sometimes departure clearance is not there.
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