CrewOps

CrewOps is a crew control desk for airlines. When a pilot calls in sick at 4 a.m., a gate closes or an aircraft breaks down, someone in crew control has to work out who can legally fly the trip, what else the problem breaks, and who needs to be told. Today that is mostly rule books, spreadsheets and phone calls, under time pressure. CrewOps does that work in seconds. A disruption can be reported by typing, by voice in English, Hindi or Telugu, or with photos. A rules engine checks every option against nine duty-time rules and ranks legal cover by cost. A controller picks a plan, and nothing changes on the roster or the flights until a second person approves it. Then the crew, the ops-room speaker, a Fire TV board and customer care are told. The models never make the decisions, as there is always a human in the loop to do that. Duty limits, costs and cover come from code, and every number in an assistant answer is checked against the engine before it is shown. On the live models it passes 35 of 36 test scenarios. The demo runs a full week for three made-up Indian airlines: 104 crew, 91 trips and 350 flights.