Flight Ops
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The whole process targets the so-called “Day of Operation”, which is the day a particular flight takes place. The day of operation is part of the operations control phase, which is a 3-day window starting two days before and including the day of operation, if the day of operation is 5th of September then the time horizon of operations control is 3rd of September, 00:00 UTC to 5th of September, 24:00 UTC. The main concerns during this phase are enabling the safe and efficient conduction of flights as well as keeping changes to schedules to an absolute minimum. Before the operations control phase occurs the planning phase that starts about 9 weeks before the day of operation and encompasses the time until three days before the day of operation. The main concerns of this phase are to schedule flights taking all legal and commercial restrictions into account. The main objects these processes work with are so-called “Rotations” (either aircraft related or crew related). A rotation in this context is a sequence of flight legs that start at a station and end at that same station; usually, that station has to be a so-called “home base” (i.e. where crewmembers or the airline’s aircraft are “at home”) to qualify as rotation start or end.