The 27th annual Jeppesen 'Users Conference' (as it is often referred to) is just around the corner, coming up in late October. We met up with the new general in charge of bringing the event to fruition, Ajit Ramachandran, to learn more about what all the fuss is about.
Ajit, thanks for meeting up. What does this event entail?
- Learning! It's all about learning. It's a truly unique gathering of planning experts exchanging information and ideas. The forum started back in 1995 and has seen a steady growth in participation. The conference has always been about facilitating for learning and exploring new ideas for improvement. Operators are meeting up and sharing their hands-on experiences, good and bad.
Sharing experiences? You have some ninety operators world-wide as customers - surely, they are often fierce competitors that would be unwilling to share information?
- You'd be surprised. I think they all realize that crew management best-practice is not where the battle stands. They have more to gain from collaboration after sharing some, but perhaps not all, of their advances in the field. The conference is almost entirely filled with operators reporting on their experiments and progress in bringing out more robust, efficient, and safe rosters to their crew. Every airline has its own challenges, so it's more about finding inspiration to new ideas, problem solving methodology, what-if analysis etc., rather than to just copy/paste a way of working.
I see. What will be the focus this year, and can anyone attend?
- The conference is 'by invitation only', exclusively for Jeppesen customers. Optimization and decision support will for sure, also have the centre stage this year. It's needed more now than ever before. Many operators are facing big challenges ramping up their operations, so there will also be a number of talks touching upon the specifics of resolving that in the best possible way. In addition, we will run several dedicated 'arenas' specifically meant for knowledge transfer and idea-exchange, which is very exciting. Learning never exhausts the mind!
Please contact your Jeppesen representative in case you would lilke to attend the conference.
Comments