Atlantic Coast Airlines Chooses Sabre Airline Solutions to Automate Pilot Training Schedules

New scheduling system for training helps airlines and pilots comply with FAA regulations, reduces overall training time and expense

SOUTHLAKE, Texas, May 15, 2003 — Sabre Airline Solutions announced that Atlantic Coast Airlines has selected the Sabre CrewClass training scheduling system to meet its pilot training requirements. This system is a new module within the Sabre Flight Control suite.

Scheduling pilot training is a complex process that involves scheduling flight simulators, classrooms, instructors and other training resources to match the timing of the necessary training events required to maintain pilot qualifications. The dual objectives of the process are to achieve maximum utilization of training resources, while minimizing the time that pilots are unavailable for productive flying assignments. These objectives must be fulfilled within applicable Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations regarding pilot qualifications, and Atlantic Coast Airline's policies.

Atlantic Coast is a fast-growing regional airline based at Dulles, Virginia. Like many North American regional carriers, the airline was experiencing rapid growth at the same time that it was introducing new regional jet aircraft to the fleet — a fleet of 130 aircraft in three fleets (Canadair and Dornier 238 Regional Jets and the Jetstream 41). Different aircraft types can add complexity to the training scheduling process, since each aircraft type has different compliance requirements. The airline was also losing some of its senior pilots to more lucrative jobs at major airlines. All this combined to create a tsunami of pilot training requirements that were difficult to schedule manually within the dual constraints of available time and resources. CrewClass system has now greatly streamlined this process.

The PC-based CrewClass system has been designed to seamlessly integrate with other modules of the Flight Control Suite, including the Sabre CrewTrac crew scheduling and CrewQual crew qualifications and training records systems. Sabre Airline Solutions received considerable input from many of the more than 50 carriers using the Flight Control suite to develop the CrewClass system which is the result of over three years of development effort.

Atlantic Coast started using the Flight Control suite in 1996 to automate its System Operations Control (SOC) functions.

ABOUT SABRE AIRLINE SOLUTIONS
Sabre Airline Solutions, a Sabre Holdings company, is the world’s largest provider of software products, reservation and departure control systems and consulting services to help airlines simplify operations and lower costs. Over 200 airlines worldwide use Sabre Airline Solution's broad portfolio of software solutions for decision-support tools to increase revenues and improve operations. More than 60 airlines use the company’s flight and ground operations suite to streamline all sized airlines crew and flight operations. More than 70 airlines worldwide rely on Sabre Airline Solutions for their reservation and departure control systems, with 16 new carriers and eight renewals signing in 2002. In addition, more than 100 clients worldwide have turned to Sabre Airline Solutions consulting group for strategic, commercial and operational consulting. More than 300 contracts were signed in 2002 within Sabre Airline Solutions.

Sabre Holdings Corporation (NYSE: TSG) is a world leader in travel commerce, retailing travel products and providing distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry. More information about Sabre Holdings is available at http://www.sabre-holdings.com/

Sabre Airline Solutions, the Sabre Airline Solutions logo and CrewTrac are trademarks and/or service marks of an affiliate of Sabre Holdings Corporation. All other trademarks, service marks, and trade names are the property of their respective owners. © 2003 Sabre Inc. All rights reserved.