\n At British Airways, that person is Neil Chernoff.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cRunning an airline is like a very complicated jigsaw,\u201d Chernoff, who oversees network and schedule planning at the UK flag carrier, tells CNN Travel. \u201cYou have to make tradeoffs to make sure that this whole jigsaw puzzle comes together and fits.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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\n Months before you board your flight, Chernoff and his team will meet to determine the logistics of your journey \u2014 right down to how many, and which class of, seats will be available for you to choose from.\n <\/p>\n
\n Every few months, they\u2019ll return to these decisions. They reassess which routes are working, which are in decline and \u2014 as has been the case for many airlines in the wake of the Iran conflict \u2014 which to scrap.\n <\/p>\n
\n At the heart of these decisions is money. Operating an aircraft is expensive, and unless it\u2019s being put to the best use, a plane will become a drain on profit. For passengers, flying on a near-empty flight is a dream. For airlines, it\u2019s a nightmare.\n <\/p>\n
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\n \u201cIt\u2019s my team\u2019s responsibility to make sure that we\u2019re making money off that aircraft or maximizing profits,\u201d says Chernoff, who worked in investment banking before moving into the aviation world 15 years ago.\n <\/p>\n
\n When there\u2019s a surge in demand, Chernoff\u2019s team reacts quickly. British Airways recently doubled daily flights between London and San Diego and Austin after both routes overperformed.\n <\/p>\n
\n When routes underperform \u2014 perhaps because a flight\u2019s arrival time doesn\u2019t work for travelers connecting to other flights, or a destination falls out of favor \u2014 it gets more complicated. The team will examine customer habits and flight data to assess what\u2019s going wrong.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt really is a complex jigsaw game,\u201d says aviation consultant Stanton. \u201cWhat works on paper in theory doesn\u2019t necessarily work in the real world.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Airline chief planning officers will typically liaise with sales teams to keep across vacation trends, which ebb and flow as different destinations light up travelers\u2019 Instagram feeds.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sometimes a destination or region\u2019s popularity is a flash in the pan, other times it\u2019s more enduring. Post-Covid, says Chernoff, the Caribbean experienced heightened interest among British travelers, and continues to be popular.\n <\/p>\n
\n The key is trying to get ahead of these trends.\n <\/p>\n
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\n \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely seen that leisure travelers want new destinations and want to be able to do something different and explore new markets,\u201d he says. New BA routes between London, Bangkok and Colombo were recently brought on in anticipation of such a wave.\n <\/p>\n
\n The team will change up aircraft to better accommodate demand.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf it\u2019s much fuller, and we\u2019re seeing more and more demand come in, we might make a decision to either add an extra flight, or sometimes what we\u2019re able to do is swap an aircraft between a different route, to put more seats into the market,\u201d Chernoff says.\n <\/p>\n
\n They\u2019ll also monitor wider societal movements, such as a shift away from short-haul business trips \u2014 another post-Covid trend \u2014 which has come hand-in-hand with an \u201cincrease in leisure travel.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n For British Airways, that has meant pulling some planes off classic business travel destinations like Frankfurt, Munich or Rome and switching them to vacation routes like Southern Spain, Italy or Greece.\n <\/p>\n
\n Planning teams aren\u2019t just responsible for choosing where an aircraft is going, they also decide when it\u2019s departing.\n <\/p>\n
\n At the world\u2019s busiest airports, airlines can\u2019t just pick their preferred departure times. They must secure what are known as \u201cslots\u201d \u2014 specific time windows to take off and land. The market for slots is highly competitive, with the best fetching big money.\n <\/p>\n
\n If you\u2019ve ever gone to book a regular flight and found it\u2019s shifted from its convenient morning departure time to the afternoon, there\u2019s a good chance that slot politics are involved.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe have a very tight slot portfolio,\u201d says Chernoff. \u201cSometimes you might have to make some trade-offs around what is the timing of a certain flight based on the rest of the schedule and the slots that might be needed there.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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\n Availability is limited, particularly at busy airports like London Heathrow, BA\u2019s base, meaning there\u2019s little flexibility for changing slots. This is something planners need to consider when setting up new routes, often years in advance.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cSlots are fixed. They\u2019re very difficult to move,\u201d says Chernoff. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to add a flight, you can\u2019t just add it at any time. It needs to be at the time that you have that slot available \u2026 to get that to fit across the 350 departures a day that we have at Heathrow.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Slots are only part of the equation. Planners also need to consider lounge availability, runway capacity, gate space, fuel logistics and ground crew. \u201cVery busy airports are limited in just how much traffic they can have,\u201d says aviation consultant Stanton. \u201cAll of those things come into play.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Chernoff also works closely with his counterparts at BA\u2019s alliance airlines. Different airlines have different kinds of business partnerships, but BA has a tight partnership with American Airlines and the two carriers will regularly discuss route planning.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe might coordinate how much capacity between the two of us are we going to fly between Miami and London,\u201d explains Chernoff.\n <\/p>\n
\n Weather is also a factor. While seasonal surges in the transatlantic jet stream might please New York-London passengers by cutting down flight times, they can create headaches for airlines.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen you have those really strong jet streams and you arrive an hour early, on the one hand, customers think it\u2019s great, but you need to make sure that you can get onto a stand and that you\u2019re ready to service the aircraft at the time,\u201d says Chernoff. \u201cSo ultimately, we really try to make sure that it\u2019s actually going to arrive right on time.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Most passengers don\u2019t care about the kind of plane they\u2019re traveling on \u2014 until it suddenly matters to them, that is. Maybe it\u2019s the moment they step on board and enter a fully-booked economy cabin. Or when they see a double-decker A380 jetliner through the terminal window and hope it\u2019s their airplane.\n <\/p>\n
\n None of this is accidental. Choosing the right aircraft to match a route and ensuring a seamless customer experience is part of a planning officer\u2019s job.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat aircraft they put on to what route can make or break a route,\u201d says Stanton. \u201cWhat\u2019s the right size aircraft with the right fuel burn, what\u2019s the right capacity for that route?\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n For Chernoff and his team, it often comes down to a simple question: What aircraft are available?\n <\/p>\n
\n This \u201csounds like it should be a relatively easy answer,\u201d he admits. But at any given time, a significant percentage of an airline\u2019s fleet will be out of action, with aircraft requiring maintenance or refitting.\n <\/p>\n
\n Then there\u2019s the question of how to use available airplanes.\n <\/p>\n
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\n Take the A380, the world\u2019s largest passenger plane. British Airways has a limited number of these popular super jumbo jets \u2014 12 in total \u2014 and typically deploys them on popular, high-demand long-haul routes.\n <\/p>\n
\n Even that seemingly obvious decision comes with complications. Longer flights need more pilots and not every pilot is trained to fly every airplane.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cA 380 that flies to Boston, for example, only has two pilots on it, but a 380 that flies to Singapore has four pilots on it, and it\u2019s a very long trip,\u201d says Chernoff.\n <\/p>\n
\n Then comes the question of passengers \u2014 not just how many, but what kind. That means getting the balance right between premium and economy or finding an airplane that has the right level of business-class seating.\n <\/p>\n
\n For example, says Chernoff, a BA Boeing 777-300 is \u201cvery premium-heavy\u201d with eight first class seats and 76 business, but the airline\u2019s smaller 787-8s have 31 in business.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat we try to do is tailor the aircraft size to what we think the market is going to demand,\u201d he explains.\n <\/p>\n
\n For all the forecasting, poring over data and logistical wrangling, some things in airline scheduling are just unpredictable. Dealing with the aftermath of what Chernoff calls these \u201cuncontrollable events\u201d is a big part of the airline planning officer\u2019s job.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey tend to happen more often than you think,\u201d he adds.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sometimes weather or other atmospheric conditions get in the way \u2014 such as the 2010 eruption of an Iceland volcano, which shut down transatlantic aviation for several days, grounding thousands of flights.\n <\/p>\n
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