Crew Scheduling
Today I worked at KLM's crew scheduling department (AMS/GT) with Brenda. It was most interesting to follow the complicated work we call crew control or crew coordination (crewco for short). Crew scheduling is divided in 2 seperate departments; "Vliegdienst" en "Passage". Vliegdienst schedules the cabin- and cockpit crew as well as the flight engineers for KLM, KLM cityhopper, Northwest Airlines, Air France and Kenya Airways and Passage schedules the employees of Ground Services. I did Vliegdienst. Crewco is a "back-of-the-house" activity, meaning the employees do not wear a uniform.
Scheduling works with a points system. Crew can requests the flights they wish and if the system gives it to them, it will deduct a point. When you have no points left, you cannot requests anymore flights untill you build them up again. If multiple people requests the same flight, then the system hands it out in order of seniority (who works the longest with the company).
A flight, depending on the aircraft type, should have a mixture of a Senior Purser (4-bander), a Junior Purser/Assistant Purser (4-bander/3-bander) and then a mixture of Business Class attendants (2-bander) and Economy Class attendants (1 bander). There is one simple rule: for every 50 seats there needs to be one flight attendant. These rules are set by the FAA, JAR-OPS, ICAO and IATA.
You also have crew that do strictly EUR flights (Europe) by choice and others that strictly do ICA (Intercontinental), but most do a mixture of both. EUR flights make the most money.
Then there is the the outsourced cabin crew. These are crew that work for KLM for a period of no more than 5 years and fly only between two stations and are there for language reasons. These crew are based in Hong Kong (HKG), Beijing (PEK), Shanghai (PVG), Taipei (TPE), Osaka (KIX) and Tokyo (NRT). The KIX and NRT crew are Northwest Japanese employees in KLM uniform. All of these outsourced crew are all 2-banders and after 5 years they must leave KLM. They have different (cheaper) salaries and other benefits than the Dutch based KLM'er.
KLM HKG based crew. Class of 2002 - Picture is taken from KLM intranet and used with permission from KLM Presslink (Thank you, Youssef E.)
The whole system is computerized and can be accessed by phone, internet or intranet. The system is called Cabin Network or CabiNet. The system that crew scheduling works with is called KLM Plan & Go. It's really amazing to witness! Here is a sample of what the Plan & Go system looks like;
Plan & Go screenshot - used with permission from KLM crewco
And a screenshot of myklm.org;
www.myklm.org screenshot - Sample shot of a demo. Thanks to Michael T. from KLM crewco
While I was there, I asked if they could plan my 747 ICA flight. They asked me what I wanted and I told them some of the flights I wanted to be on. The flights I wanted, were the flights that R. was working. After calling the Planning Manager and my boss, I got one of R's fllight!! I really didn't want to do it all alone. So this is what my flight schedule looks like:
SUN 12 Feb xFLIGHTx KL0809 74E AMS-KUL 20.25-08.05V+
MON 13 Feb KUALA-LUMPUR 46:00
TUE 14 Feb KUALA-LUMPUR
WED 15 Feb xFLIGHTx KL0809 744 KUL-CGK 09.15-11.15
WED 15 Feb xFLIGHTx KL0810 744 CGK-KUL 12.55-15.00
THU 16 Feb KUALA-LUMPUR
FRI 17 Feb KUALA-LUMPUR
SAT 18 Feb xFLIGHTx KL0810 74E KUL-AMS 16.15-05.15
After work, I went to Schiphol-Oost to buy an airplane seat. Yes you read it right! You see KLM got rid of its 747-200SUD and 747-300 and the older 737-300 and 767-300 are also leaving the fleet to be replaced by the 777 and A330. So KLM's sells the chairs to anyone who wants them for a very cheap price. I never bought one. Now there is this guy called Marcel, who works for Martinair Maintenance, who bought a 747-300 World Business Class chair last year, but he wanted to get rid of it. I offered to buy it for €100,- and he accepted, so I went to pick it up. I had my Dad's Toyota Rav4 with me, so that was no problem.
Martinair hangar at SPL-Oost
It's my birthday gift for R. who wanted one for a long time... and believe me... R. was more than happy with it! But damn... I nearly broke my back lifting that thing!
The 747-300 WBC seats
So after I dropped the seat off at R. in Rotterdam, I headed home. I am dead tired and tomorrow is an early day as well. I'll be working in the KLM Crown Lounges at Schiphol.
More pics of today can be found here. Submap AMSGT.
Scheduling works with a points system. Crew can requests the flights they wish and if the system gives it to them, it will deduct a point. When you have no points left, you cannot requests anymore flights untill you build them up again. If multiple people requests the same flight, then the system hands it out in order of seniority (who works the longest with the company).
A flight, depending on the aircraft type, should have a mixture of a Senior Purser (4-bander), a Junior Purser/Assistant Purser (4-bander/3-bander) and then a mixture of Business Class attendants (2-bander) and Economy Class attendants (1 bander). There is one simple rule: for every 50 seats there needs to be one flight attendant. These rules are set by the FAA, JAR-OPS, ICAO and IATA.
You also have crew that do strictly EUR flights (Europe) by choice and others that strictly do ICA (Intercontinental), but most do a mixture of both. EUR flights make the most money.
Then there is the the outsourced cabin crew. These are crew that work for KLM for a period of no more than 5 years and fly only between two stations and are there for language reasons. These crew are based in Hong Kong (HKG), Beijing (PEK), Shanghai (PVG), Taipei (TPE), Osaka (KIX) and Tokyo (NRT). The KIX and NRT crew are Northwest Japanese employees in KLM uniform. All of these outsourced crew are all 2-banders and after 5 years they must leave KLM. They have different (cheaper) salaries and other benefits than the Dutch based KLM'er.
KLM HKG based crew. Class of 2002 - Picture is taken from KLM intranet and used with permission from KLM Presslink (Thank you, Youssef E.)
The whole system is computerized and can be accessed by phone, internet or intranet. The system is called Cabin Network or CabiNet. The system that crew scheduling works with is called KLM Plan & Go. It's really amazing to witness! Here is a sample of what the Plan & Go system looks like;
Plan & Go screenshot - used with permission from KLM crewco
And a screenshot of myklm.org;
www.myklm.org screenshot - Sample shot of a demo. Thanks to Michael T. from KLM crewco
While I was there, I asked if they could plan my 747 ICA flight. They asked me what I wanted and I told them some of the flights I wanted to be on. The flights I wanted, were the flights that R. was working. After calling the Planning Manager and my boss, I got one of R's fllight!! I really didn't want to do it all alone. So this is what my flight schedule looks like:
SUN 12 Feb xFLIGHTx KL0809 74E AMS-KUL 20.25-08.05V+
MON 13 Feb KUALA-LUMPUR 46:00
TUE 14 Feb KUALA-LUMPUR
WED 15 Feb xFLIGHTx KL0809 744 KUL-CGK 09.15-11.15
WED 15 Feb xFLIGHTx KL0810 744 CGK-KUL 12.55-15.00
THU 16 Feb KUALA-LUMPUR
FRI 17 Feb KUALA-LUMPUR
SAT 18 Feb xFLIGHTx KL0810 74E KUL-AMS 16.15-05.15
- Amsterdam - Kuala-Lumpur (Malaysia) with a 747-400 combi version
- 2 days lay-over in Kuala-Lumpur
- Kuala-Lumpur - Jakarta (Indonesia) - Kuala-Lumpur in one day with a 747-400 full pax version
- 2 days lay-over in Kuala-Lumpur
- Kuala-Lumpur - Amsterdam with a 747-400 combi version
After work, I went to Schiphol-Oost to buy an airplane seat. Yes you read it right! You see KLM got rid of its 747-200SUD and 747-300 and the older 737-300 and 767-300 are also leaving the fleet to be replaced by the 777 and A330. So KLM's sells the chairs to anyone who wants them for a very cheap price. I never bought one. Now there is this guy called Marcel, who works for Martinair Maintenance, who bought a 747-300 World Business Class chair last year, but he wanted to get rid of it. I offered to buy it for €100,- and he accepted, so I went to pick it up. I had my Dad's Toyota Rav4 with me, so that was no problem.
Martinair hangar at SPL-Oost
It's my birthday gift for R. who wanted one for a long time... and believe me... R. was more than happy with it! But damn... I nearly broke my back lifting that thing!
The 747-300 WBC seats
So after I dropped the seat off at R. in Rotterdam, I headed home. I am dead tired and tomorrow is an early day as well. I'll be working in the KLM Crown Lounges at Schiphol.
More pics of today can be found here. Submap AMSGT.
Cheers y'all!
posted by Traveller at 11:37 PM
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