An Analysis of Consolidated vs. Coordinated Operational Support Airlift Scheduling.

Abstract : USTRANSCOM was tasked by the Chairman, JCS, to provide recommendations on consolidating the scheduling of the Operational Support Airlift (OSA) fleet. The proposed consolidation would result in all Services' OSA flight requests being transmitted to a single activity for scheduling. IDA was asked to conduct a study to investigate the effectiveness of consolidating scheduling vs. the extant multi-Service OSA scheduling. A representative sample of consolidated and coordinated flight schedules was selected for analysis by a Joint team of military aircraft schedulers from all Services and IDA research staff members. The analysis revealed a consistent positive trend in the effectiveness of consolidated scheduling over coordinated scheduling. Consolidated scheduling satisfied 7.5 percent more requests and 7.7 percent more passengers while flying the same number of mission-hours. It also produced, on average, missions with a greater number of passengers on fewer aircraft. The analysis in this report contributed to the final USTRANSCOM recommendation to the Chairman, JCS, to 'Consolidate OSA scheduling under a single unified commander.'