Boeing has announced an agreement with UAE's Etihad Airways to provide multiple crew management solutions to support the planning and operation of the airline's 7,500 crew members.

Through the agreement, Etihad Airways will integrate Crew Pairing, Rostering and Fatigue Risk Management solutions to optimise planning, crew satisfaction and reduce costs. Provided through Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen, these solutions are powered by Boeing AnalytX and provide airlines with advanced optimization and analysis.

"By adopting crew solutions, we are confident that we will be able to respond and adapt more quickly to the ever-changing airline factors and constraints within our operation," said Rick Allen, senior vice president operations, Etihad Airways. "Our crew team will also appreciate that their preferences will be more flexibly considered, as we will now be able to publish crew schedules further in advance."

Crew Pairing helps airlines create optimised work duties, improving crew efficiency and operational robustness, while minimising cost. Crew Rostering allows airlines to build quality rosters that respect crews' preferences and relevant constraints, while reducing total costs and time to market. Fatigue Risk Management solutions, supported by the Boeing Alertness Model, provide strategies and proven solutions for reducing fatigue risk in crew rosters.

"Airlines that use these services often see cost reductions of three per cent or more annually and a significant uptake in crew satisfaction over their rosters. By adding these tools to the Boeing flight operations services already in place today, Etihad will continue to drive positive change," said Ihssane Mounir, senior vice president of Commercial Sales & Marketing for Boeing. "The flexibility and strength of our optimisation in the crew management suite will allow Etihad to solve complex issues with ease and support their decision-making process with detailed quantifications of risk and costs." - TradeArabia News Service