In order to test some TTR elements and support the change management on RU side, the FTE Plenary Assembly in November 2021 agreed to conduct FTE pilots in 2022. One of them is the Pilot on Shortening the Annual Timetable Consultation phase in TTR, or shortly “FTE Consultation Phase Pilot”.
Within TTR, earlier capacity allocation in the annual timetable is foreseen. This should bring benefits especially for passenger RUs, as this contributes to the goal of being more competitive towards air transport: earlier capacity allocation means being able to open ticket reservations for passengers earlier than currently. To reach this goal, among a lot of other factors, also the length of the draft timetable consultation phase is going to be reduced: from 4 to 2 weeks. This is a challenging reduction of time for RUs, causing the necessity to be tested in a pilot. Are RUs able to manage consultation in this reduced period?
FTE organises such a pilot during the capacity allocation for TT 2023, in July of this year. Within a wide variety of countries, types of routes and complexities, FTE RUs will try to get an overview of the success of being able to fulfil the consultation in 2 weeks – and more importantly: to get an overview of all issues that have to be solved in order to make it possible within TTR.
FTE will organise this with the general goal to minimise the additional work for FTE RUs as much as possible, a compact questionnaire on the experiences will be prepared and demonstrated during the FTE Plenary Assembly in June 2022. Moreover, it is important to stress that the pilot doesn’t impact the formal length of the consultation phase for TT 2023: if RUs are not able to finalise the consultation in 2 weeks, the remaining two weeks are simply still available for this.
We encourage all FTE RUs to join the pilot. Only with your help, we will be able to find out what issues have to be solved to make a 2-week consultation phase possible! Please get in touch with peter.bouman (at) forumtraineurope.eu and matteo.soldini (at) forumtraineurope.eu.
Created by Peter Bouman