Creating a Flight Schedule

Modified on: Wed, 22 Sep, 2021 at 10:32 AM

This section describes the processes of creating and maintaining schedules and adhoc schedules in the N-OC system.

Prerequisites

To be able to create schedules in the system, there are certain prerequisites that must first be defined:

Data
Companies
Prefixes
Suffixes
Seasons
Aircraft Types
Versions
Configurations
Service Type Codes
Stations and Terminals
Default BLH (Distance)
TA Times
IATA Rules
Company Rules
Messages and Receivers

For more information, please contact your administrator.

To open a New Schedule window, right mouse click in the Gantt on the aircraft registration row until this window appears:

Note: Where you click on the Gantt will determine the proposed STD shown in the schedule window. (You will see this later on).

Select New ‘Sche’

Click here to see a schematic display of the new schedule flight.

The wizard Header

Creating and maintaining schedules are presented in logical steps. There are two steps in the wizard: 1. Edit step 2. Message step. The wizard header displays the current step in the process (in red), and the next step (in grey).

The Flight Identifier Panel

The user enters the Airline code, Flight Number and Suffix in the Flight Identifier Panel. Completion of all fields is mandatory. Note: ‘Project’ and ‘Call Sign’ are optional fields.

The Rule Check Panel

From the Rule Check Panel, the user can check and ensure that the newly created schedule complies with pre-defined rules (already set up in the N-OC Rule engine).

The status lamp (grey circle) displays different ‘traffic-light’ colours depending on the result of the rule check. After a check is made, a tree-view shows which rules, calculators, or accumulators were used in the rule check. Any violations are also included.

The Calendar Panel

The user enters period information for the schedule in the Calendar Panel.

Choose a season: All seasons created in N-OC are shown in the drop down list.
Valid From: The start time for the schedule (which defaults to where the user pointed at with the mouse pointer in the Gantt).
Frequency: days of the week when the schedule operates.
Weekrate: If it operates weekly or bi-weekly.
Time Mode (only UTC available for the moment).

The Route Panel

The user defines the routing in the Route Panel. The route must have a minimum of two stations, and can be up to a maximum of nine stations.

Note: only active stations are shown in the drop-down list.

If the user wants to activate a station that is not currently available from the dropdown, they select the

button. The user is then presented with a window like the one shown below.

The search option includes any of the following: Airport name, IATA code, or ICAO code. The

button makes the airport station available in the system.

The Action Panel

The action panel has 2 functions:

1. Note:

The ‘Note’ is activated by clicking on the arrow on the left side of the panel.

The note can be stored either as an ‘SI’ (Supplementary Information) - it will only be part of the system, or as a Schedule Note (a predefined note type). Schedule Note is stored in the system.

There are 2 buttons to copy an SI Note to a Schedule note and vice versa. The scheduled note will optionally be shown on the leg puck on the bottom left side (not implemented yet).

2. Create the ‘legs’ that the flight is comprised of.

Here the user can create a new flight for any given season.

Insert the following information:

Airline Designator
Flight Number
Suffix (Optional)
Project (Optional)
Call sign (Optional)
Valid From
Valid To
Frequency
Week Rate
Date Mode - UTC/Local
Route

Click on

to create multi-leg flights and select additional station(s). (Example: ARN > LHR > CDG)

The Leg Panel

Select the

button – a new schedule editor row is displayed at the bottom of the window. Enter the required Schedule information: about the route, departure and arrival times, equipment, version, configuration, and STC.

The route and schedule times have already been created. The system uses the default BLH (Block Hours) for the specific aircraft type, period, weekday. The values are set in the ‘Distance’ tab in the station window. The default version and configuration for the leg is set as well.

The user can change the following: terminal information, times, equipment and service type codes (STC). These four icons are shown on the right side of the window and store extra information for the leg.

Set the onward reference, aircraft owner and Code share - see also Onward Flights concept

Enter ‘Meal codes’

Set Cockpit and Cabin Owner

The user edits passenger related information

Note: These are not fully implemented yet.

The function to add traffic restriction on a segment is now added. There is currently no validation if traffic restrictions are not to be combined according to SSIM manual or to add multiple traffic restrictions of the same code. This will be implemented later.

In the service tab in additional dialog in the schedule dialogs (New Schedule, New AdHoc, Edit Schedule and Create AdHoc from Schedule, there is now a possibility to add a traffic restriction code to a segment. This will be part of a NEW schedules SSM and ASM message and the ADM message (if only changing this part of a schedule).

The SSIM file export also shows this on the Schedule row, (in position 150) plus the number of points the segment points to. The SSIM file import will also parse Traffic Restrictions

Two Step Process

The process of creating, editing, deleting etc in N-OC usually follows two common steps:

	1. The Step Panel By clicking on Next in the step panel, the user proceeds to the next step - the ‘Message’ Page.
	2. The Message Page - Processing Messaging/Reports/Eventflow tasks and saving. Here all relevant messages defined in the system will be automatically generated for the newly created flight.

Below is an example:

The user has entered the information and clicks on
The Messages, Reports and Eventflow related to the new schedule are displayed.
These are sent out and processed when the user clicks on Save.

Note: Click on the magnifying glass to view and update the message/report/eventflow information before sending.

Click on

to save your schedule flight. It is then displayed in the Gantt.

Adding Notes to the Schedule

There are two types of notes that may be added when creating a new schedule:

SI - Supplementary Information - these are aded to the bottom of the standarda IATA messages
Standard Note - See Editors > Company > Note Types

Creating a return schedule

To create a return routing click on

. The system creates the outbound routing but in reverse, bringing it back to the starting point. This function also uses default BLH, and default turn around times, as pre-defined in the system.