The Flughafen (Airport) Information and Planning System FIPS

Context / objective

In efforts to attain more planning reliability and process enhancement, Düsseldorf International Airport asked us to develop an application capable of creating reliable daily flight schedules based specifically on the selected seasonal flight schedule. The schedules contain all information about the airline, the slot time for each flight, flight destination or origin, and indeed all data necessary, not only for daily flight schedules, but also for the purpose of dispatching personnel and scheduling gate and take-off positions.

Linking arrival and departure data proved an additional challenge for application development because the data is managed separately as independent  events in the system.

Solution / execution by SITA Airport IT

All information about scheduled flight events comes from the flight plan coordinator for German commercial airports. We conceived and developed a system that links these data with locally available detailed information from various airline companies. In addition – based on historical data – critical estimates are made regarding aircraft type as well as arrival and departure times. These historical values further improve the accuracy of the data generated.

Success / added value for the customer

Our application, the Flughafen (Airport) Information and Planning System (FIPS), enables the creation of daily flight schedules containing extremely reliable information. Thus, Düsseldorf International Airport now has planning reliability, particularly in regards to the assignment of park positions. The result is far less effort when manually linking arrivals and departures. For dispatchers it means a notable reduction in their daily work load. Overall, the customer benefits from a clear improvement in process quality.