Twice a year, in March and October, airlines switch to their summer or winter flight schedules. For passengers, this mainly means new departure and arrival times. For postal operators, however, these changes can affect a significant part of their international transport operations.
Changes to routes, flight frequencies, aircraft types, capacity adjustments and transfer arrangements: airline schedules evolve, and postal transport plans must keep pace.
As a result, a route that worked perfectly well just a few weeks earlier may become less suitable or even difficult to operate. So how can you ensure that your transport plan remains aligned with actual airline operations?
1. Changing airline schedules: a risk for postal transport plans
International postal networks rely on a wide range of airlines and routes. Not all of them offer the same level of stability.
Some routes operate daily flights with relatively consistent schedules. Others experience frequency changes, different departure times depending on the day of the week, or more substantial adjustments throughout the season.
This diversity makes transport planning and monitoring more complex.
Connecting routes are particularly sensitive to these changes. A delay of just a few dozen minutes on the first flight can reduce the available connection time at a hub and jeopardise the onward transportation of mail.
Example: A postal consignment is transported on a first flight to an international hub, where it must be transferred to a second aircraft. If the feeder flight arrives later than scheduled, the connection time may become insufficient. The consignment may then miss its onward flight and have to wait for the next available departure.
A seemingly minor schedule change can therefore have a significant impact on final delivery times.
2. The fastest flight is not always the most suitable option
When designing or optimising a transport plan, postal operators naturally consider flight time as an important criterion. However, an aircraft’s arrival time alone is not enough to determine whether a routing is operationally efficient.
Receiving and mail processing constraints at destination must also be taken into account.
Postal networks operate within specific injection windows. For a consignment to be included in a particular sorting or delivery cycle, it must reach the appropriate facility before a defined cut-off time.
This explains why a flight arriving at 11 a.m. can deliver the same operational outcome as one arriving at 6 a.m.: if both flights allow the same destination processing window to be met, the five-hour difference in arrival time does not necessarily result in faster delivery.
Conversely, a later flight may cause a consignment to miss a processing cycle, resulting in a significant delay to final delivery.
Transport plans must therefore be assessed against several criteria:
- Flight departure and arrival times.
- Connection times at transit hubs.
- Mail reception and processing constraints at destination.
- Mail handover cut-off times at origin.
- Operating days and flight frequencies.
The objective is not simply to select the fastest flight, but to build a routing that is compatible with all the constraints of the postal supply chain.
3. Planning data can quickly become outdated
The reliability of a transport plan also depends on the quality of the data used to build and update it.
In some environments, the exchange of flight schedules between postal operators and airlines still relies on static files, particularly Excel spreadsheets shared through bilateral exchanges.
This approach may be sufficient for initial planning. However, it has limitations when airline schedules change regularly.
Any change in frequency, departure or arrival time, or flight cancellation must be identified, communicated and integrated into the relevant systems. Without a sufficiently responsive update process, the information used by operational teams may no longer reflect the actual airline services available.
The consequences are tangible:
- Flights may remain in a transport plan even though they are no longer scheduled.
- Frequencies may no longer match actual operating days.
- Connections may become incompatible with revised flight schedules.
- Teams may continue working with routings that are no longer suited to current operating conditions.
The issue is therefore not just about data availability, but also about keeping information up to date and integrating it into planning tools.
A transport plan is only reliable if the information it is based on remains consistent with the actual airline network.
4. How can you assess the reliability of a postal transport plan?
Against this constantly evolving backdrop, regularly reviewing a transport plan helps identify inconsistencies and anticipate their potential impact on service quality.
LEG-2 supports postal operators in this process through an approach combining operational analysis and data verification.
The audit is based on two complementary areas of assessment.
Business Assessment: Does the transport plan meet operational objectives?
The first stage involves comparing the structure of the transport plan with the operator’s service quality commitments and operational constraints.
It includes reviewing:
- The suitability of selected routes.
- The consistency of transit and connection times.
- The compatibility of flight schedules with receiving and processing constraints at destination.
- Potential weak points that could jeopardise transportation times.
The objective is to identify critical sections of the network and provide recommendations to improve its overall resilience.
Data Assessment: Does the information reflect actual airline services?
The second stage focuses on verifying the consistency of transport plan data against available airline schedules.
LEG-2 cross-checks planning information against airline data sources to identify potential discrepancies.
Depending on the data available, this analysis can help identify:
- Flights that no longer match published schedules.
- Inconsistent frequencies or operating days.
- Flight times that are incompatible with planned connections.
- Planning information that needs to be updated.
This verification process makes it possible to compare the theoretical transport plan with actual airline services and detect anomalies that might go unnoticed during a simple document review.
These two approaches are inseparable: a route may be technically available without being operationally suitable, just as a theoretically attractive route may rely on outdated airline data.
5. Anticipate changes rather than deal with their consequences
The IATA seasonal schedule change is a particularly relevant opportunity to review a transport plan. However, this process should not be limited to March and October.
Airline schedules can change throughout the year. A route adjustment, frequency reduction or schedule change may justify a new assessment, even in the middle of a season.
Working with a specialist provides an opportunity to take a step back, identify inconsistencies and gain a clearer understanding of the risks associated with transport planning decisions.
Expert support can also help strengthen the skills of internal teams by providing them with a reusable analysis methodology that can be applied to future network changes.
At LEG-2, we support postal operators in assessing and improving their air transport plans by combining in-depth knowledge of postal operations with airline data analysis.
Are your transport plans still aligned with current airline schedules?
Contact LEG-2 to discuss your audit requirements and identify opportunities to improve your postal transportation network.
