Optym's SkySYM Software Deployed by Southwest Airlines to Strengthen Reliability of Flights

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Optym is pleased to announce that Southwest Airlines has begun using SkySYM to strengthen the operational reliability of the carrier's flight schedules. Based on the U.S. Department of Transportation's most recent data, Southwest Airlines is the nation's largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded.

SkySYM is an advanced network simulation system that measures the operational performance of airline flight schedules with respect to on-time arrivals, schedule recover ability and passenger connections. Part of the Sky by Optym suite of network planning solutions for airlines, SkySYM provides industry-first capabilities to model major operational factors including aircraft flows, passenger flows, maintenance activities, weather patterns, ATC events, and crew and baggage delays.

Furthermore, it also provides insights for operational readiness and recommendations to adjust contingency in the schedule to improve overall robustness. By simulating planned schedules under real-world conditions, SkySYM serves as a highly accurate testing lab to measure and evaluate the robustness of multiple proposed flight schedules before they are implemented. The results of SkySYM will improve customer experience through a reduction in delayed flights.

Optym's work with Southwest Airlines began over two years ago when the airline needed a new-generation flight scheduling system to create more optimized schedules. The schedule optimization system, called SkyMAX, was deployed at Southwest Airlines earlier this year. Now with SkySYM also in use, the carrier has the most advanced suite of airline network planning and scheduling solutions on the market to optimize operational performance.

"Developing SkySYM to simulate the operation of our highly complex, point-to-point route network was no simple task. With SkySYM, we will better understand the impact that different network designs have on our operational performance. We are very pleased with the dedication, expertise and commitment that Optym displayed at every step of this journey, and with the results we are seeing," said Southwest Airlines Senior Manager of Operational Performance Jeff Borges.

"Every airline wants to build optimal flight schedules that will both maximize profits and be more reliable," said Renzo Vaccari, Vice President of Airline Solutions at Optym. "Working together, we were able to implement and calibrate SkySYM successfully to provide precise simulation results. Our results show that the system predicts on-time performance indicators with greater than 90 percent accuracy. I want to thank everyone on the Southwest and Optym teams for making this happen. Everything is impossible until somebody does it." 

Source ~ Travel Daily News