31 Aug

Information in a Dash

Have you ever wondered, or bothered to calculate how many hours of your life you’ve wasted logging into this app or opening that 300th tab?

Great news- we could develop a dashboard for you to keep track of! But that would probably just be depressing.

In even greater news, we can develop dashboards that put those depressing processes to bed for good, and in doing so, we can help save your team time, frustration, and the fruitless effort to come up with a new password. Again. Because they have to reset it. Again.

Officially out of cat names to use.

One of the main breakdowns we see that lead to staff shortages, delays, cancellations, and just overall operational messes, is a lack of oversight. Critical information that really, everyone working behind the scenes should have, is instead parsed out via one CMS or another, with each department relying on only their specific database of information and flying blind to the realities of the other departments even though all of these pieces are connected/ influence each other.

Hacking Their Way to Mediocre Information

Not only is the software sector of aviation often spread out over multiple databases- so your team is constantly typing in codes and opening tabs to glean the information they need; that’s the easy part here. Half the time they don’t have access to vital info, because it’s technically not their department.

Management too often has to go searching for the information they need in various corners of their computers. It’s like an overly complicated skincare routine. Instead of one moisturizer containing all the elements you need for glowing skin renewal, instead, you are having to go out and buy individual vials of squalene, retinol, honeydew film flam powder, and whatever else, and put them together yourself.

This serum feels like operational integrity on my skin.

In both skincare and the running of an operation, chances of mistakes, mishaps, and premature age spots are high. Not worth it. This is where ELP Dashboards come in, and they are to aviation what the perfect serum is to keeping those fine lines at bay.

AKA everything you need in one place, ready to go.

ELP can create custom displays, for your specific departments and make sure they have a comprehensive view of the stats that matter to them. It’s a living display that helps monitor:

  • legality warnings: crucial for scheduling, this easy-to-interpret alert system lets them know beforehand when a crew member is getting close to contractual and FAA legal limits. This is also useful to management in terms of interpreting certain conditions or procedures that may unknowingly be contributing to a trend of delays.

  • cancellations: like their legality counterpart, this one is most beneficial to scheduling- I can’t tell you how many times we as crew members had to brave hold times to inform scheduling (to their surprise) that a flight had canceled and we needed to know next steps for our sequence. Sometimes this would be hours after the cancellation, a delay that directly contributes to legality issues as well.

  • coverage: when scheduling and management are able to see overall where coverage is good and where it might be lacking, they are better able to move things and people around to mitigate any shortages. This is also beneficial to scheduling’s ability to grant reserve release requests, which benefits overall reserve availability later in the month, and keeps morale up for the crew members, making them less likely to call out due to burnout.

  • soft time: sit time is irritating for flight attendants and pilots, and it’s inefficient for the operation overall. Too much sit time can mean that in the case of even a small delay, legality once again becomes a problem. Track soft time overall, and see where your planning department could improve crew resource management.

  • payroll simplification: everything ELP Dash helps with also illustrates every department’s interconnectedness; if Payroll can monitor delays and cancellations in real-time, the pay adjustments they need to track are visible and ready for analysis. Our software lives on a screen but is also available to print reports and graphs as needed. Financial trends are also tracked and any decline in revenue is mapped out and ready to be analyzed and solved.

  • sick trends: monitor if and when certain events lead to the most sick time used, as well as any repeat offenders if they have unique (or predictable) call-out patterns. This is a useful way to keep accurate reads on attendance, and have the information you need should a meeting with the offender and/or the unions become necessary.

  • missing certifications: once when I was on reserve, scheduling tried to send me to China- one problem, however- I didn’t have a Chinese Visa. Now, not to blame them- I didn’t know how to look it (or lack of it) up at that point either- and they couldn’t just take my word for it (I’ll be the first to admit that some FAs seem to make getting out of trips an Olympic sport), and the time and resources it took for them to determine that I indeed did not hold the proper visa to crew the trip… it took hours. Hours that could have been used to monitor and fix other things that I’m sure were happening in the background. Hours that could have saved them a stand-by, since by the time they determined I was visa-less, contractual call-out time was below the standard limit, and they had to use a standby to crew the flight. Hence why enabling a display for scheduling to see what qualifications crew do or do not hold is another vital building block in the name of expediency and staffing.

  • training qualification alerts: like the certification display, training qualification monitoring is of vital importance to both crew and the training department. A crew member who is behind on their FAA-mandated training and re-certification is a crew member who can’t fly. Get your people back in the sky by empowering those in training and scheduling positions with the knowledge to help generate proactive action.

But All These Departments Use Different CMSs

Yeah, we know. That’s why our software is able to pull from various departments and core software from SABRE to Crewtrac, Jeppesen to Lufthansa, and create custom displays from the information and raw data that pertain to a specific department regardless of software or traditionally allowed “access”. We’re not advocating for the cross-sharing of sensitive or otherwise useless (to that department) information- again each and every graph and graphic has a purpose unique to the department who is using it- but we believe that an overarching view of the operation is necessary and beneficial across the board to help your team get the information they need to make decisions to better your airlines.

Giving them this information in easy-to-read, succinct graphics that are all in one place? Icing on the display.

Posted by | Posted at August 31, 2022 1:08 pm |
About us

Airlines depend on ELP Aviation because our software improves operational efficiencies, eases crew interactions, and increases profitability. We offer products that provide scalable and agile solutions based on the individual Carrier’s needs. We’re already thinking about how to solve the next problem.

Learn more
Locations

Headquarters:  103 W Spring Ave, Conway Springs, KS, USA

Branch Office: Narayana Enclave, Plot No 610, Road Number 33, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad-500033, Telangana, India.

Contact Us
+ 1 (316) 239-6080

info@elpaviation.com

 

Account
If you are an ELP CrewPortal App user please contact your Department for questions.

@ ELP Aviation, Inc. 2020

About us

Airlines depend on ELP Aviation because our software improves operational efficiencies, eases crew interactions, and increases profitability. We offer products that provide scalable and agile solutions based on the individual Carrier’s needs. We’re already thinking about how to solve the next problem.

Learn more
Locations

 

Headquarters:  103 W Spring Ave, Conway Springs, KS, USA

Branch Office: Narayana Enclave, Plot No 610, Road Number 33, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad-500033, Telangana, India.

Contact Us
+ 1 (316) 239-6080

info@elpaviation.com

 

Account
If you are an ELP CrewPortal App user please contact your Airline Department for questions.

@ ELP Aviation, Inc. 2020