Charles Alcock is managing editor of the AIN Media Group, having rejoined the company in 2019. He has been an aviation journalist since 1986, and previously worked for AIN from 1990 to 2017, most recently as editor-in-chief. His main focus is on covering new aviation technology and business models, as well as international news.
Having been raised in the London area, Alcock studied at the University of Manchester in the UK and earned an honors degree in Politics and Modern History. He speaks English and French, and some German.

Managing Editor

Charles Alcock

Floating Fleet AI is now offering charter operators and brokers what it claims is a quantum leap in terms of the speed at which they can schedule available aircraft for flights. According to the U.S. start-up, by tapping artificial intelligence (AI) to drive fleet searches, it has reduced the task to just a few seconds.
The platform is the brainchild of founder Roger Zahn, who has worked in private aviation since completing his doctorate in 2006 at the University of Florida. After starting with CitationShares, Textron Aviation sent him to China for a couple of years to help develop the market there, and he later led data services for both Wheels Up and Wayfair Professional.
According to Zahn, Part 135 operators need more effective help managing both their aircraft and their crew members. Floating Fleet’s promise to them is that it will come up with the shortest path to maximizing capacity and, by extension, return on investment in a very competitive marketplace.
The platform, which the company says can be integrated with most flight management systems, got its first paying customer in February and now supports more than 45 aircraft. “Humans can do this work, but not fast enough,” Zahn told AIN, claiming that rival platforms take several minutes to complete the same tasks. “The heart of the problem is working out how [for example] 20 aircraft could operate 100 flights over just a few days, and our system also handles crew assignments and gives fleet planning windows and projected savings.”
<h2>Tracking Exceptions, Like Late Shows</h2>
Floating Fleet’s AI component can be trained to take into account multiple variables noted by each operator based on past experience. For example, if an aircraft owner or charter customer is routinely late, the system will take that into account when allocating equipment. The core data tracked by the platform is where an aircraft is, where it is due to be next, and the qualifications and status of available flight crew.
“It’s there to help the human scheduler have more time for what they are good at, which is understanding the priorities of the customer and responding to them,” Zahn explained. “For the sales team, it can assess all the costs and show optimum pricing with margins for multiple scheduling options, taking account of factors such as the need to relocate aircraft and looking for efficient pairs or sequences of flights.”
According to Floating Fleet, the system is suitable for any operator managing five or more aircraft flying 400 or more hours each year, and with more than 15 pilots. It can also help air charter brokers generating more than $50 million in annual revenues, which Zahn said equates to around five or six flights every day.
The company aims to have more than 100 aircraft listed on the platform by year-end. Zahn and his team are integrating the technology with more third-party systems and working with operations software provider MyAirOps. On October 1, it confirmed that the software has now been integrated with the FL3XX platform.

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