"Change in context brings changes in the content" - Prof. Anil Gupta
CrewOpt, A Unified Optimization Tool for Aircraft Route Planning at Southwest Airlines
Client: Southwest Airlines
Timeline: 4 Months
Introduction: The Complexity Behind Airline Scheduling
Airline operations run on precision. Every aircraft movement, crew assignment, and route decision triggers interconnected consequences accross the network.
​
At Southwest, planners manage workflows accross multiple systems (SkyWorks, DPOS, Line Optimizer) each with siloed responsibilities and outputs. This disconnect results in inefficiencies, specifically around crew connections, where crew members switch an aircraft mid-duty. These connections introduce operational risks, and increased workloads for the planning teams.
CrewOpt streamlines crew connections by providing a new solution for aircraft routing within an application to analyze and understand optimization outcomes.
My role was to shape IPO into a cohesive product experience that turns complex optimization processes into a transparent, intuitive application that planners at Southwest could trust.
Problem
Crew connections are unnecesary and are limitted by varied aircraft requirements for different flights
Changes in aircraft routes create cascading changes in crew duties
Complicates downstream bidding for crew duties
Last minute avoidable aircraft swaps
Risks operational performance
Crew connections are unnecesary and are limitted by varied aircraft requirements for different flights
Research and Synthesis
Understanding Crew-Aircraft Dynamics
The fewer the aircraft Path Deviations, The fewer the crew connections.
UX Takeaways:
We understood the need for the user to have a clear visual turn and crew swap indicator and a display of aircraft routes and duty alignments/ misalignments.
Key Users
We uncovered two core users, since the intent of CrewOPT was for both these user groups to collaborate and share ownership of, we ended up designing dual gantt modes, where one network is nested within the other to enable visualization of connected relationships and dependencies.
Network Planners
Think in Aircraft Lines
Crew Planners
Think in Crew Duties
Design Principles
Based on early interviews, user shadow sessions and requirment definition workshops with SMEs, we defined the following three UX heuristics
Planners must at all times be aware of:​​
-
Scenario that is being worked upon
-
Whether optimization is running or not
-
PLaces where constraints failed and
-
Instances where the solution is invalidated due to change in data
-
What changed in the output
Visibility of System State
Optimization is only trusted when explanable. We added the following:​​
-
Indication for retimes, reblocks and swaps
-
Delta values between base plan and a solution
-
KPIs comparing metrics among multiple scenarios
Explain the Cause, dont just Show
Planners decide, the system assists.​​
-
User controls optimization configurations
-
Saved optimization templates for situational optimization runs
-
Scenario versioning and branching
Empowering the User
Workbench Scenario Management Hub
Key capabilities include import schedule/ crew data, creation of a base plan, organize multiple scenatrios and solutions, immutation versioning model, metadata transparency
UX Decisions
-
Folder based mental model
-
Quick access to file previews
-
Clear grouping of solution runs
Creating a Base Plan
12+ required file types enable the users to ensure input data compliance is maintained and all required files to generate a base plan are uploaded by them. The system then ingests these files and generates a base plan rendered as a gantt chart for manual assesment and evaluation.
Flight and Crew Gantt Views
The core visualization engine enabling holistic analysis of flight plan
Optimization Configuration Panel
A UI abstraction of 40+ optimization rules that can be tinkered with and saved before triggering an optimization solution. This solution is then saved as an independent scenario accesible within the workbench
Notification and Alerts
Enabling transparency around system behavior and constraint invalidations, an alert panel would bring visibility of new solutions generated by the system and any violations of hard and soft constraints. This panel also acts as a to-do-list for the user as a goal to solve for.
KPI Comparison
Clear evaluation of optimization quality for each solution can be done by comparing change in key metrics with respect to the base plan
Outcome and Results
IPO transformed a highly technical optimization engine into a planner friendly decision support tool. Through enhanced UX, complex scheduling constraints became understandable, explanable and controllable, empowering better decisionmaking by the planners at scale
Operational Impact
-
Reduction in Crew Connections
-
Improved Duty Consistancy
-
Faster Rerouting Responses
-
Lower Disruption Risk
Planner Experience
-
Better Clarity in Optimization Logic
-
Fewer Manual Tasks
-
Simple Scenario Management
-
Higher Trust and Adoption