How far out are flights planned at major airports and who is responsible for planning these flights and the gates at which they arrive? Are certain gates chosen for a reason or is it random?
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I know a tiny bit about this having worked briefly for the SW airlines pilots union.
First, it’s very complicated. A lot of computer power goes into optimizing flight paths and moving people and equipment around to meet what they think will make them the most money with full planes.
I know that the flights are scheduled months in advance (worked on some piloting scheduling stuff). The airline puts together a month’s worth of flight time for a pilot called a Line. The pilots get to bid on lines based on seniority and some other factors. So, weeks before a month begins, the pilots already know what they are flying for the whole month.
Moment to moment, they have a command center that tracks all the planes and crews and what gates they are at and that kind of thing. I never got to go over there, but I have been told it’s similar to the flight control center on an aircraft carrier. If weather or something happens, they have folks there that handle it; move backup planes, activate reserve crews, etc.
The gates in the airport, I’m almost certain, are leased by the airlines for their use.
All of this is handled by the airline.
The airline plans the route (e.g. a flight from New York to Los Angeles and then back 2 times a week on Tuesday and Friday). The airline then assigns aircraft to that route (e.g. a Boeing 757).
The airline then assigns a pilot to this route for some day, and the pilot files a flight plan with the FAA specifying the times of departure, way-points on the route, requested cruise altitude, etc. The pilot is also responsible for making sure the plane is fueled and safe for the flight.
Gates at airports are almost always leased by the airline using them, and will usually be allocated in a single terminal. For example, Terminal 2 at JFK airport in NYC is leased entirely by Delta Airlines.
Usually, gate assignments are planned well in advance, but sometimes (for more frequent flights, or due to delays) they’re assigned upon arrival. ATC will direct the route the airplane is to take from the runway to the assigned gate (e.g. Taxi to gate A34 using taxiways A B2 B C6). The plane will then either be ‘turned around’ for another flight, or taken to a maintenance ramp/hangar.
For the most part flights are run on a constant schedule; daily, every other day, weekly, etc. For example, [Delta flight 1529](https://www.google.com/search?q=dl+1529&oq=DL+1529&aqs=chrome.0.0l3.4103j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) is a non-stop flight from New York to LA every morning. I assume the same flight crew does a flight back from LA to New York every day as well.
As for the gates I’m not sure who assigns them but I seriously doubt it’s random. They need to maximize the traffic in and out, accommodate for delays, etc, they’re probably pretty flexible about which flights go where.
Airlines have a team of schedulers and dispatchers. They coordinate with the civil aviation authority (for the US it is the FAA) for what are called ‘take-off’ or ‘landing’ slots. In other words, an airport has a carrying capacity and airlines pay to get those slots. So the scheduler needs to sort out how long to leave the plane on the ground for connecting arrivals (the #1 consideration in scheduling) *and* when they are allowed to take off and land at each airport.
There is a channel on youtube called “Wendover Productions” which did a whole episode on how flights are scheduled and how it is a lot of art and science. Southwest ‘pushes the metal’, United is best at getting connecting passengers, and the middle east airlines uniformly suck at it.
Airline Pilot here.
The way many airlines work is about 6 months out the marketing department shows what flights it wants to do for that season. Let’s say they want to do a flight from San Diego (SAN) to Denver (DEN) and they want to do it every day 3 times a day. That schedule will go onto the schedule and people can then start buying tickets.
That schedule then goes to fleet planning and they will decide what size airplane they want to use on each one of those flights.
The size of the airplane then let’s crew planning or “scheduling” know what size crew they will need to operate the flight. The bigger the airplane the more flight attendants you need and the longer the flight the more pilots you need.
So now that we know the segment we want to fly, the size of the airplane and how many crew members we need the month before the flight crew members will be assigned to it. (we bid for them but that gets more complicated)
The day of the flight usually about an hour prior a dispatcher will put together the flight plan for the flight. The sole purpose of the dispatcher is the behind the scenes party planner for a flight. They decide the route which is different than the segment.
The segment is SAN-DEN but the route is the highways in the sky we will use to get from one place to another. There are a lot of different ways of getting to den from San but Air Traffic Control usually has a preferred route for the airlines and can help keep things from turning into a traffic jam but those routes are also very dependent on weather, especially thunderstorms so often we have to take a different one.
Once a route is chosen we then know how much gas we can take. We don’t alway just fill the tanks to the top. We only take what we need as gas is expensive and weighs a lot. So that info goes to the fueler and they will put that much on.
This information then goes to the Loadmaster. They look at how many people bought tickets where they are seated, how much cargo we have and then use that to tell the Rampers ( all the people you see below the airplane loading bags) how many bags are going in what cargo compartment. This helps balance the airplane.
What gate the flight starts from and ends at is controlled by the Gate Keeper for that airport. In SAN my company only has 2 gates so it’s usually whichever is open at the time. In DEN we have a lot of different gates but luckily we know the schedule months in advance and can come up with a rough schedule for each day by seeing when flights are landing and when other flights are departing. They will then try to match an airplane that just landed with a gate that just had an airplane leave. Not all gates are the same size though so sometimes the gate is chosen because the airplane is to big for other gates and also where did the airplane come from. They’re are certain gates that are attached to customs enforcement so if it’s an international flight they will have to go to one of those gates.
Now of course all of this is “The Plan” sometimes the plan goes great and it’s that simple. Other days, not so much and everyone is sent scrambling to come up with a new plan to avoid major delays. Sometimes that’s not always possible.
::Edited mobile chosen spacing to make is easier to read
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