Crew Rostering

Building schedules for pilots and co-pilots is one of aviation's most demanding planning problems. It requires assigning an entire cockpit crew base to duty sequences over a full planning period, while respecting a large set of hard constraints (flight time limitations, rest rules, type rating requirements, leave allocations) and optimizing for cost and fairness simultaneously. But the difficulty goes beyond combinatorial complexity. In practice, planners need to iterate quickly, react to last-minute changes, and make judgment calls that reflect years of operational experience. Most existing tools fall short on both fronts: requiring lengthy planning cycles, struggling with flexibility, and producing schedules with little room to interact, explore alternatives, or explain trade-offs in terms planners actually understand. The gap between what the optimizer outputs and what operations can absorb remains a persistent pain point across the industry.

NukkAI developed a new-generation rostering engine built around three core strengths: an agentic interface that gives planners natural, conversational control over the scheduling process; a deep operational proximity shaped through close collaboration with crew planning experts; and a carefully calibrated balance between optimization quality and operational practicality. NukkAI produced schedules that are not just mathematically sound, but directly applicable in real-world conditions. The solution was brought to live operations with a forward-thinking airline acting as champion user, stress-testing and co-evolving the tool against the full complexity of a real crew base.

• Full roster generation for pilots and co-pilots across a complete planning cycle
• Enforcement of all hard regulatory and contractual constraints
• Agentic interface allowing planners to interact with the solution in natural language, adjust parameters, and explore trade-offs in real time
• Iterative co-development with crew planning experts to ensure the solution speaks the language of the business