The plane crew and ground staff are, in most cases, the visible personnel of an airline when we take a flight, but behind each flight there are different teams that work day and night to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Among these key teams are the professionals who make up the OCC, acronym in English for Operational Control Center, the true heart of an airline.
Depending on the season, Vueling has between 40 and 60 people working in shifts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. “Planes sleep, the OCC does not” is the most common phrase in this department.
Every time a flight is planned, it faces changing conditions: weather, characteristics of the arrival airport, speed, altitude, fuel, number of passengers, cargo… No two flights are the same, even if they follow the same route. Therefore, pilots need to know all these possibilities in advance: plan A, plan B and even plan C in case something unforeseen arises. And all of this is compiled in the operational flight plan.
The ‘flight dispatchers’ are in charge of this. ‘My job is to draw up the flight plans for each journey, that is, to generate all the necessary data for the flight to be a success,’ explains Antonio Martínez, flight dispatcher at Vueling.
“Preparation begins ten hours before the flight and must be finished three hours before departure. There we detail to the commander, for example, how much fuel he needs to make the journey and the minimum fuel for safety to reach alternative airports to the destination. That would be plan B if they cannot reach their intended destination airport and have to land at another one,” he adds.
From their department they dispatch about 500 flights daily, which become up to 750 in high season. Their main nightmare are situations that are far from the usual, such as bad weather, among others. “You plan to fly over Paris at 10 in the morning. If an air traffic controller suddenly becomes ill, the control capacity in that overflight sector is reduced. Much more so if there are adverse weather conditions that slow down traffic. Therefore, to avoid delays, we planned in advance an alternative route that does not fly over Paris,” he says.
The experience of a commander is vital to face any incident – the most correct term to refer to them would be disruption – during the flight. Joaquín Capella has spent five years combining his flight hours as a commander with the duties of a service pilot in the OCC. “When I am on the ground as a duty pilot, I provide support to other departments from the most technical and practical side. I advise pilots in real time when something out of the ordinary arises, or that is not in the operations manual,” he explains.
They work side by side with flight dispatchers, providing the experience of many hours of flying. “For example, when conditions are at their limit and it is a complicated airport such as Keflavic in Iceland, we review the different operational options to ensure that we have all the guarantees to start the flight, and if this is not the case, we decide to cancel it until conditions improve,” he details. “In short, we contribute our experience in complicated situations, although the commander on board is the one who has the last word,” he concludes.
A device breakdown, an airport that closes due to a mishap or snowfall, a storm that turns unexpectedly, the eruption of a volcano, a strike… these are just some of the factors that can lead to the entire company having to be reviewed. operational.
Faced with these scenarios and external conditions, dozens of people from the OCC work around the clock to solve the problems that may arise as a result, so that they have the least impact on passengers.
In these situations, the first thing is to know what happened, collect all the information and confirm whether it is possible to operate a flight or not. Here, it is worth highlighting that among the main challenges that these teams face is the fact that, on a regular basis, after one of these conditions they encounter a period of uncertainty, which can last up to 30 minutes, until the Competent authorities are in a position to provide all the necessary information that allows each case to be evaluated and a decision to be made.
“Every day at the end of the day, routine inspections are carried out, marked by the operator himself and the manufacturer (in our case, Airbus). In them, the wheels and brakes are checked, and a look at the passenger cabin and the exterior of the plane is taken. The objective is to ensure that the plane flies in optimal conditions and is in perfect condition,” details Joshua Martínez, programmer of these Maintenance tasks (Maintenance – MOC Team Leader).
In the few hours of the night when the plane is stopped, it is not always possible to carry out all the work. “Planning is optimized according to the time the planes have on the ground at night. We plan maintenance for about seven days to ensure that the plane sleeps at an airport with certified personnel to carry out the tasks and guarantee that the necessary time is available for it,” he says.
For her part, Miriam Capilla, Ops
Every morning his team participates in the punctuality meeting where they analyze what happened the previous day. “We also look at what we face that day and the next, anticipating potential operational risks to implement solid plans and strategies to optimize resources and ensure efficient and continuous operation. We see how many backup planes we have, reserve planes without flights, in case any problem arises. “It is our plan B,” he points out.
A more frequent event than it seems are strikes of various kinds that affect, for example, the operations of airports. In these cases, the priority is to minimize the impact on customers. “If it affects us a lot, we can even freeze sales, due to the risk of cancellation. We even designed a plan B for flights that could be canceled to relocate passengers on the following flights,” he explains.
Every member of the cabin crew must deal with factors such as pressure changes and time zone jumps that can cause some wear and tear. That is why the regulations specify that each crew member can only work a certain number of hours in a row.
Therefore, in the event of possible unforeseen events that may imply that these hours are exceeded, all companies have imaginary crew members. “They have scheduled an on-call service to cover last-minute incidents, with a deadline to show up at the airport to operate their flight,” clarifies Rubén Funes, one of those responsible for Crew Operations, the department that is responsible for ensuring that All flights of the day have crew and that the almost 1,500 crew members who operate per day comply with their time limits.
“An unforeseen event, such as a storm or a strike that implies a modification in the departure time of a flight, may put some of the crew at risk of exceeding the number of daily hours. In that case, due to air regulations, you could no longer continue flying, alternatives must be sought in advance. To solve these last-minute unforeseen events, imaginary crew members are used or even changes are made between crew members from different flights to fit together the puzzle of more than 600 flights that encompasses one day of operations,” he points out.
Vueling operates a fleet of more than 120 aircraft. On a normal day there may be 60 or 70 planes flying at the same time, which, in turn, will land and take off several times at different airports. These are called rotations. All it takes is one problem at an airport and the entire day’s rotation can become complicated and challenging. “I always say that my job is to be a fire extinguisher,” jokes Alex Nicoll, the company’s Operational Control Manager. He is the visible head of the OCC on his shift and every day he arrives at his position with a clear objective: that the operation is carried out in the most efficient and safe way in the face of the different disruptions that may occur during the day.
Unforeseen events that lead to disruption happen daily, but in these cases the key role played by the OCC is to work to propose solutions that impact passengers as little as possible.
“The strange thing is to have more than three hours of tranquility in the operation. I receive information from the different departments and I am responsible for making the most optimal decision. Or the least bad one,” she points out. In this sense, he remembers that this summer, for example, a plane from another company suffered a breakdown and was stuck on the runway at Ibiza airport. AENA canceled all takeoffs and landings on the island. And there a complicated situation arose. “You have to think about how you divert the flight that comes from Rome and is already in the air, take into account that the crews cannot exceed a certain number of hours for safety, do not lose sight of the weather, because you may have wind strong in Barcelona or Valencia, airspace regulations…There are many factors.”
From there, every second counts and the options are to reschedule flights, divert to other airports, delay or cancel. “These are decisions that must be made at the moment, and with the information available in real time,” he says.
In addition to day-to-day operations, the OCC also manages exceptional situations such as sending aid in emergency situations, as happened with the sending of materials this year to Turkey and Syria, after the earthquake that hit the region in February. On that occasion, Vueling and the Spanish Red Cross carried out a special flight in collaboration with IAG Cargo and Aena, to send humanitarian supplies.
Specifically, these types of actions are managed by Customer Response, which, for example, also manages the transfer of organs in cooperation with the National Transplant Organization (ONT).
“When there is a catastrophe, some want to get out of there as soon as possible and others want to go to help or because their relatives are there. We experienced it recently with the earthquake in Morocco. We contacted through Instagram with a group of tourists from Barcelona who wanted to leave the country early. We also activated lines in the Contact Center so that people who did not want to fly could postpone their flight. The opportunity also arose to transfer a group of volunteer firefighters, along with dogs specialized in the recovery of missing people in this type of situation and all their rescue equipment,” explains Raquel Bono, Customer Operations Manager.