Ship Sets, EFB, Sabre, Phoenix, & SCEPTRE
 

Having been gone for quite a while, I am trying to resolve differences I've read in the last month regarding the above systems in the M-UAL fleet (M means “Merged” ;)).

1. Which fleets don't have ship-sets? Or, stated another way, which do not use EFBs yet, and must still lug around the arm-stretching torture bag that dates back to the “rack” of the middle ages?

If a fleet does not have it, when do they expect completion?


2. I did my “fuel-saving” training last week. The two flight-planning systems mentioned, if I recall correctly, (since the ULN doesn't let me go back to review them) were Sabre and Phoenix. It was stated that all fleets were going to Sabre, and only the 737 has Phoenix.

I wondered: “Why are the newest airplanes we are getting delivered with the FMC software that we are getting rid of?


So is only the 737 using Phoenix?



3. Howard's letter yesterday said that the 777 fleets are now harmonized for training, and only the implementation of an electronic logbook---SCEPTRE---stood in the way of fully integrating them.

What do the other fleets use? Is that also an impediment to merging the 76T and 756 fleets?


I also found it amusing that SCEPTRE seemed familiar: it is because SPECTRE is an evil super-villain organization and foe of James Bond.


(And our legacy Skynet was from Terminator).

I could be wrong but nobody carrys a flight bag any longer. There are ship sets for approaches and IPADs for all the manuals.

Everything is ship sets. LCAL 756 was last to get ship sets and that was about 3 months ago.

As for sabre. 737 is the largest fleet and this is the problem. They have been dealing with LCal 756 switch over the past 2 months and there have been issues. This is on an aircraft with far fewer departures than the 737. Also there are only so many Subject Matters Expert guys around. Or SMEs. So expect to initially see some delays when this gets rolled to the 737.

737 will roll our before too long. It's mainly a software switch for the airplane but a big switch vs phoenix. You can do the cbt but really after a few flights it will make sense. I still learn things here and there. I do like a lot of stuff on Sabre. I also wish it did a few things that phoenix did.

Once you reprogram how to hit buttons your all good.
Don't worry about it. I'm as dumb as the come and I didn't have too many problems.

There are a "few" things I like about Sabre on the 756, but for the most part, I don't think it is worth the trade -offs for the routes we fly domestically, or even international. It has increased the cockpit work load. It is set up for a narrow gauge printer- making it less easily readable. I really have to search for the important stuff. The howgozit is a joke- not accurate. I believe we will see a lot more errors taking place once the 737 adopts it. Instead of slowing the already hectic pace- it tends to make one rush more. The ideal set up IMO would be a domestic dispatch with Phoenix and international with Sabre. I'm dreaming of course. I wonder- since we don't own it- how much more it costs us per flight to use Sabre.

In the first year alone it saved four times the initial purchase costs and license fees in fuel savings over Unimatic flight plans that were of similar sophistication to Phoenix.

As we learned with Shares, CCS and a myriad of other programs low 'ownership' costs can be dwarfed by other costs increases and lost revenues.

Sabre (former FWZ) is probably the best flight planning system available by a large margin and like anything else, once we get used to it will become the new normal.

All good info.

As to the maintenance log: how is that done, and are there differences across fleets?

Where or who told you that it saved 4 times the initial costs and fees?

Jeff, Howard, Rainey? I don't believe a word from any of those Bozos

I read somewhere that 72% of all statistics on internet boards are made up on the spot.

Hahaha

I read it was only 68% ;)