Operations
Rostering crews across multiple ACMI contracts
Rostering across multiple ACMI contracts means allocating one crew pool to several separate coverage commitments, each with its own bases, rules and guaranteed block hours. Covering a single contract is straightforward; the hard part is covering all of them without duplicating headcount.
An ACMI operator sells capacity with the crew included (see our guide to ACMI, wet, dry and damp lease). Its margin therefore lives in the roster: every under-used or badly placed crew costs twice. What follows is a way to structure the problem when several contracts run in parallel.
Why does running several contracts change everything?
One pool, separate commitments
Crews belong to the operator, not to the contract. Yet each client expects its own coverage, often on a project base abroad, for a defined period. The roster arbitrates continuously between needs that do not naturally offset: a surplus on one contract does not cover a deficit on another if it sits in the wrong place or on the wrong type.
Rules stack on top of each other
Crews stay under the lessor's AOC and FTL scheme; that is the definition of a wet lease. But every contract adds a layer: local regulation in the country of operation, client-specific requirements, visas and work permits, sometimes service standards. The same pilot may need to satisfy several frameworks within one month.
The minimum guarantee sets a coverage floor
ACMI economics rest on a guaranteed volume of block hours. Failing to fly the contracted hours does more than reduce revenue: depending on the contract, it is a default. Coverage is therefore a contractual commitment before it is a quality target.
Crew rotations between bases are expensive
On project bases, crews rotate: several weeks on site followed by a return home. Every rotation consumes deadheading and duty time that never shows up as a block hour. Optimising the length and synchronisation of those cycles is one of the segment's main cost levers.
How should the roster be structured?
- Model each contract as a coverage demand (base, period, guaranteed volume, specific constraints) before assigning anyone by name.
- Allocate globally, not contract by contract. Handling contracts one after another serves the first at the expense of the rest. A global allocation finds the trade-offs a contract-by-contract reading never sees.
- Treat qualifications and permissions as blocking constraints: type rating, validity dates, visas and work permits for the country of operation. An available crew member without a valid visa is not a resource.
- Synchronise rotation cycles across contracts to pool positioning and avoid every relief falling in the same week.
- Size reserve per critical contract, not as a theoretical global pool: reserve in Paris does not reach a project base across the continent in time.
- Be able to simulate a new contract. The commercial question "do we have the crews for this?" has to be answered during the tender, not after signature.
Sizing each contract then comes down to block hours per available crew member: that is the subject of our article on block hours and crew utilisation in ACMI.
That is what SkAI Tech enables as an add-on to the operations system already in place: compliant multi-contract roster generation, with regulatory, regional and in-house rules configured per operator, in 12 minutes on average, and re-generation whenever a contract enters or leaves the portfolio.
Running several ACMI contracts at once? See how SkAI Tech plans multi-contract crews for ACMI operators.
FAQ
Should crews be dedicated to each contract?
Dedication simplifies management but costs more: each contract then absorbs its own absences alone, which forces per-contract overstaffing. Pooling is more efficient, provided the arbitration can be done precisely. That is exactly what an optimisation engine adds.
How do you handle local rules in each country of operation?
By configuring them as additional constraints on top of the operator's FTL scheme, contract by contract. A tool that accepts only one rule set forces every contract onto the most restrictive one, which wastes capacity.
What happens when a contract starts or ends mid-month?
That is the segment's normal case. What matters is being able to re-generate a complete, compliant roster quickly, instead of hand-patching a plan built for a different portfolio.
Sources
- Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008, Article 13: leasing of aircraft with crew (wet lease).
- Regulation (EU) No 965/2012, Part-ORO Subpart FTL: the operator's flight time specification scheme.
- SkAI Tech indicators (first-party data): average generation time observed across 2025-2026 deployments, varying with fleet size and operating model.
