Flight cancellations are the dominating headlines in aviation news. Cancellation levels are nowhere close to the highs during the heights of COVID in 2020. Analysis shared in OAG’s recent webinar states that the percentage of cancelled flights is multiple percentage points above pre-COVID levels. As there is no quick solution in sight to resolve the omnipresent staff shortages, one of the main drivers of cancellations, these levels are here to stay – at least for a while.
Cancellations are rarely known prior to creating security checkpoint staff plans or when preparing and planning the operations of other key areas in and around the terminal. Understanding which flights are more or less likely to be cancelled is critical, as is knowing how to best allocate available staff. Gaining insight into flight cancellation patterns and trends will help to create more timely, accurate planning, and prevent, or at least minimize, disruptions for passengers.
BEONTRA Solutions
To help airports figure out patterns and identify flights that are most likely to be cancelled, we offer machine learning based cancellation probability and status predictions. This feature is available in our Operational Forecasting solution. The algorithms identify and learn from patterns in the past and use that data to predict cancellation probabilities for flights in the future, helping save time and create more accurate operational forecasts.
Analysts have the flexibility set thresholds based on which flight should be considered as cancelled or scheduled. For example, flights with a predicted cancellation probability of more than 50% can be set as cancelled. Then both the probability as well as the status classification of the respective flight event is used to analyze and visualize the predicted impact of each flight cancellation, and the corresponding onboard passengers. These insights can then be easily shared with stakeholders.
We also have extended the flow modelling capabilities of our Terminal Capacity Management solution to make use of the status information. Based on that data, it is easy to create what-if scenarios and predict and simulate passenger flows, both with and without the passengers of the flights expected to be cancelled.
Contact us or request a free demo to find out more about how BEONTRA can support your airport.