Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Suggestion: Use paid & free sources to update DVA & codeshare current schedules

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | Airline Operations | Suggestion: Use paid & free sources to update DVA & codeshare current schedules

DVA12610
Captain, B747-400

Joined on April 15 2015
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"No matter what else happens, fly the airplane"
Wabash, IN

305 legs, 825.3 hours
190 legs, 542.2 hours online
289 legs, 775.4 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on October 12 2020 00:17 ET by Nicholas Watkins

I'm sure this has been suggested before, but I'd like to suggest that we add a semi-automated way of updating the routes on the DVA schedule to more closely match that of the rw Delta and its Codeshare Partners. This could be achieved by integrating with the REST API that providers like Flight Aware, OAG, wego, or any of the other platforms have. While most, if not all, of these services are paid, if Delta VA's parent (i.e. Global Virtual Airlines Group) is non-profit, there might be a chance for a discount on the schedules. I would personally be willing to donate to a fund that would be responsible for paying for the services that would keep our schedules up to date.

Thanks!

Nicholas Watkins

Captain, B747-400

DVA057
Senior Captain, B777-200
COMM

Joined on June 02 2002
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"We Are ... Penn State!"
Atlanta, GA USA

672 legs, 1,338.4 hours
531 legs, 1,076.4 hours online
392 legs, 786.1 hours ACARS
190 legs, 406.3 hours event

Posted onPost created on October 13 2020 14:59 ET by Terry Eshenour

Thank you for your thoughts and offer to assist. As you might suspect the matter of keeping our schedule up-to-date presents many challenges since our schedule updates daily for the flights active on that day. At one time we had an affordable commercial source that worked well. However, the firm was acquired and the business plan changed including the pricing making it unaffordable. One download was 5X our annual operating expense. ]
Our search for a solution included the sources you suggested. All were unaffordable or the data lacked the detail need, including requests for outdated data for a not for profit operation.
The current data set is based on Delta Air Lines'hard copy schedule, which due to Covid is not being updated and a legacy schedule with historic routes entered from documented routes.
I wish that I could give you a more hopeful answer. Perhaps others reading this will share their ideas.

Regards,

Terry

Terry Eshenour

Senior Captain, B777-200

DVA228
Captain, B777-200

Joined on August 13 2001
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Northeastern United States

375 legs, 1,669.7 hours
359 legs, 1,580.0 hours online
375 legs, 1,669.7 hours ACARS
1 legs, 2.1 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 24 2021 16:01 ET by Dean Stantin

Whilst I understand your constraints, should pilots be penalized for submitting a flight report if it's not in the 'outdated' schedule. Meaning if you can link to the flight actually flying that day in real world, shouldn't the report be approved? I've never understood the rule that only flights in the schedule can be approved. Surely, since you focus so much on realism, with ranking structure and type checks, this would be a fairer system for 2021 and beyond!

Posted onPost created on January 24 2021 18:32 ET by Terry Eshenour

DVA requires three things when selecting and submitting flight reports.

1). The flight is in our schedule on the date flown.
2). A rated aircraft is used to fly it.
3). The selected aircraft is capable of completing the journey with legal fuel reserves.

The DVA acceptable flight policy is dependent on an established flight data source. That source contains more than 10,000 flights to select from. We have no practical way to link into a real-time flight schedule datastream.

For our flight report review to function, it is necessary to use the data source for the system can check for validity. It is impractical to expect that our flight reviewers would review real-world schedules when reviewing individual flight reports to establish the flight operated on a day.

Regards,

Terry

Terry Eshenour

Senior Captain, B777-200

DVA10323
Chief Pilot, B727-200
OLP

Joined on November 26 2011
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"GPS, we don't need no GPS"
Gulfport, MS

1,585 legs, 1,452.3 hours
737 legs, 681.1 hours online
1,577 legs, 1,444.8 hours ACARS
41 legs, 58.7 hours event
327 legs dispatched, 343.5 hours

Posted onPost created on January 26 2021 08:47 ET by Kevin Lundy

Thank you for your insight Nicholas and Dean. I will start by saying I always look at the data. Yes, I have data issues, Ha! The schedule has been a discussion here at DVA for several years now. I know there have been many posts in the water cooler concerning the schedule. A fault of mine was assuming everyone knew the history of the schedule and how it works. Thanks to your insight, I see that is not the case. Both of you are veteran DVA pilots and are not aware, so I will summarize for others who may not know the current state of the schedule.

AS Terry Mentioned above, DVA had an affordable commercial source for our schedule updates. That source increased their cost, and just the schedule updates' price would increase DVA's annual budget five times. DVA staff conducted a lot of research trying to replace the source, but we could not find an affordable service.

We found free PDF documents containing Delta's and the Skyteam's schedule during the search for alternative schedule sources. These documents are not in a format where it could be saved and imported into our database. We are talking 1000's of flights and many pages of data.

Luke and Scott Simmons volunteered their time (many months of free labor), developing the code and tools needed to covert the Delta PDF schedule and Sky Team schedule into a format we could import. They were successful, and we increased our raw schedule by 384,738 flights. Keep in mind all of these flights are not available every day of the week. Terry mentioned we have or 10,000 flights to choose to fly on any give day.

The PDF schedules are released quarterly, and the plan is to update our schedule quarterly. This is a fantastic undertaking considering our volunteer staff's amount of labor, time, and dedication to making this happen.

Then COVID hit. From an operational standpoint, the operations staff looked at the current condition of the schedule. Here is a title from a Times Magazin article, "Two-Thirds of the World's Passengers Jets Are Grounded Amid COVID-19 Pandemic. Here's What That Means" If we kept our schedule up to date in the last year, we would have lost a lot of flights, and that still holds true today.

We can make today's current schedule live, and yes, there will be a few more routes to choose from that we currently don't have in the 10'000 flights, but we would lose a lot more routes than we would gain. So the operation staff has decided to hold off on the schedule updates until the real world aviation schedules get back to somewhat of a normal state.

The last thing that all DVA pilots should know if you find a real-world flight and it is not in our schedule, submit a help desk ticket with a link to the source where you found the flight, and we will get it into the schedule. Keep in mind it may take a few days for our volunteers to get the route into the schedule, and it may not appear every day depending on the real world schedule.

Kevin Lundy

Chief Pilot, B727-200

DVA6530
Captain, A320

Joined on October 16 2008
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Jackson, MS

1,115 legs, 2,175.1 hours
24 legs, 61.0 hours online
1,057 legs, 1,987.8 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 27 2021 10:31 ET by Eric Tombaugh

Kevin thank you for the detailed information!

Follow up question around the day of the week service, and please tell me if this is available somewhere already - would it be possible to add a check box or something to the find a flight page that would let you search for all days of the week?

It would be helpful when trying to finish an achievement to be able to see all possible routes to an airport regardless of the day flown. Checking the schedule daily just isn't something a lot of us have the time to do. It also might reduce extraneous requests to add flights ad-hoc to the schedule.

In addition, there is obviously some seasonal flights that only operate certain times of the year, are these moved to the historical schedules when they go out of season? Or is the expectation to wait until that time of year to fly them?

I get the push for accuracy in the day of the week scheduling and seasonal flights, but having the option to bypass that would be greatly appreciated. We all fall on different spectrums of hard-core simulator to hobbyist. People might be limited in time to check the schedule daily to see new flight options to add to their flight assignments, and likewise, some people may not be able to fly during certain parts of the year, limiting their ability to take advantage of the seasonal flights.

Eric Tombaugh

Captain, A320

Posted onPost created on January 27 2021 11:28 ET by Terry Eshenour

Eric,
The daily flight scheduled is created daily for that date. We don't have the ability to "look forward" as you suggest. As Kevin explained we have a core database of 300,000 plus flights from several sources that is used to create the schedule consisting of about 10,000 flights. A "look forward" feature is hypothetically conceivable but you wouldn't be able to fly until the actual date.
You can ask in the Help Desk for flight operation specifics and solutions if you encounter a "dead-end" situation. I believe that you will find our staff to be supportive and resourceful.
Regards,
Terry

Terry Eshenour

Senior Captain, B777-200

Posted onPost created on January 27 2021 12:10 ET by Eric Tombaugh

Thanks Terry, I was wondering if it was setup as day of the week or specific dates. I'd imagine the Route Map page also is generated using this same data, the map changes day to day based on what that days schedule is?

I'd be all for a look forward feature or summary feature. Even if it had the ability to show all the available destinations that are loaded in the database, but if there isn't a flight active that day, make the icon a different color or something.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I have looked at some real world schedules through the airlines booking page, but then the DVA site might not even let you pick that destination as an option because there isn't a flight that day. Which is fine, but it'd be nice to see if it could be an option before submitting a help desk request.

I'll even volunteer to help put something like that together if its feasibly possible!

Eric Tombaugh

Captain, A320

Posted onPost created on January 27 2021 12:32 ET by Terry Eshenour

Eric,
When comparing Delta.com flight data and DVA schedules, we are not making a direct comparison since they are designed for entirely different purposes. Delta.com is offering schedules for commercial reasons, to reserve flights and sell tickets. DVA is offering its pilots the opportunity to select a city pair to fly to recreate virtually, based on DAL's current and/or historic schedule. Our schedule is a "snapshot" of a schedule published pre-Covid. DAL's schedule updates daily for the next 180 days.
Assuming that we were able to "look forward" in our schedule I agree it would be informative but you couldn't fly or hold the flight until it appears in our active schedule. There would be little value-added for major coding work. I do recall that the schedule preparation is resource-intensive, just how much I am unsure of but that would need to be evaluated.
Regards,
Terry

Terry Eshenour

Senior Captain, B777-200

DVA1994
Captain, B737-800

Joined on October 30 2004
50 State Club
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"Every Day Is A Gift"
Concord, NH

701 legs, 1,595.3 hours
301 legs, 859.8 hours online
514 legs, 995.3 hours ACARS
28 legs, 93.7 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 31 2021 17:21 ET by Tom Burrill

My short observation having flown here since 2004 in varying degrees of activity as a hobby, realism is nice but given the massive changes in Delta due to Covid which may never return to pre Covid status again. We must understand that in certain cases some aircraft have been sold for freight use etc. and some destinations have been dropped. It is best to pay great attention to a historic schedule thus allowing for the use of aircraft that people have worked hard to gain ratings in but will never show on the Delta Real World Schedule again stay active while additions for fleet replacement aircraft are included as well. The massive amount of work done with creating the schedule you now use is commendable and I thank you all for this effort. The face of aviation has been changed totally and efforts to keep active what you have built over the past 20 plus years is strongly advised.

Tom Burrill

Captain, B737-800

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