Capital Allocation
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Flight Dispatch 98 User Manual On-line Edition

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Which Aircraft Flies What

You don’t schedule flights on a particular aircraft. You schedule them on a sub-fleet: aircraft of the same type with the same cabin, such as V402 Y180. Passengers can’t tell those aircraft apart, so any of them can fly the flight. Each day’s flights are shared out among them automatically, about a week ahead.

How flights are shared out

  • Flights are taken in order of departure, and each goes to an aircraft that’s free then and can fly the route.
  • An aircraft that will already be at the right airport is preferred, so outbound and return flights tend to stay together.
  • When something changes, such as a new flight or a new aircraft, the plan is worked out again. Flights leaving within the hour keep their aircraft.

When there aren’t enough aircraft

If more flights are scheduled at once than you have aircraft, the extra ones appear in the Unassigned row at the top of the Schedule tab. A flight still without an aircraft when it’s due is cancelled, and its passengers choose a later flight where there’s room, another airline or a refund (see Flights and passengers). The schedule dialog warns you when a new flight would need more aircraft than you have.

Aircraft in the wrong place

A flight with an orange corner is flown by an aircraft that will be at another airport when it’s due to leave. Point at the flight to see where. It flies anyway, from wherever the aircraft is.

Once such a flight is due within a day, Ops Control also puts it on the Alerts, to be acknowledged, unless you’ve just been told when moving it there.

Right-click the flight to put that right: if a positioning flight can get the aircraft there in time, the menu offers one, leaving as soon as the aircraft is free.

Positioning flights

A positioning flight moves an empty aircraft to another airport, without passengers. Right-click an aircraft’s row on the Schedule tab and choose Position to, then the airport. Click on the timeline ahead of now and it leaves at that time; click on the aircraft’s name and it leaves as soon as it can. In the console:

POSITION G-ABCD CDG
POSITION G-ABCD CDG 1400
POSITION G-ABCD CDG 09JAN 1400
  • It flies from wherever the aircraft will be at that time, and needs at least half an hour’s notice.
  • It’s pinned to the aircraft. Flights the aircraft had at that time go back to the planner; pinned flights, or maintenance, stop it.
  • It’s numbered in the 9000s, such as UE9001, and shown in blue on the schedule.
  • To call it off before it leaves, right-click it and choose Cancel Positioning Flight, or type CANCEL UE9001.

Maintenance orders its own positioning flights to hangars away from your base; those go with their visit. See Maintenance.

Tail swaps

A tail swap moves a flight to another aircraft. Drag a flight on the Schedule tab onto another aircraft’s row. The row turns green for an aircraft of the same sub-fleet, and red for one that can’t take it. Or right-click the flight and choose Tail Swap, then the aircraft. You can also type the command in the console:

SWAP UE101 G-ABCD
SWAP UE101 09JAN G-ABCD

The first moves the next UE101; the second picks the day. Drag it along the timeline as well to delay it at the same time (see Flights and passengers). Either way:

  • The flight is pinned to that aircraft, shown by a pin at the top of the flight. The automatic planner never moves it again.
  • If the aircraft had another flight then that you hadn’t moved, that flight goes back to the planner to find another aircraft.
  • Flights can only move within their sub-fleet, and not once they’ve left.

Unpinning

To hand a pinned flight back to the planner, right-click it and choose Unpin, or type UNPIN UE101 (add the day, UNPIN UE101 09JAN, to pick one). The planner may then give it to another aircraft. To unpin every flight an aircraft has still to fly, right-click its row and choose Unpin All Flights, or type UNPIN G-ABCD.

Freeing an aircraft for maintenance

A maintenance visit can’t be moved to a time when its aircraft has a pinned flight. To free the aircraft, unpin its flights, or move them to another aircraft of the sub-fleet, such as one just delivered. Then move the visit on the Maintenance tab. The planner gives the aircraft’s other flights at that time to the rest of the sub-fleet.