OREANDA-NEWS. October 26, 2011. Estonian Air enters into long-term partnership with Lufthansa Consulting increasing commercial planning efficiency with new “Rent-a-plan” service, reported the press-centre of Estonian Air.

Estonia’s national carrier Estonian Air worked together with Lufthansa Consulting to develop a new innovative consultancy product to improve network planning and scheduling. The product is targeted for smaller airlines following a joint formulation of a new network strategy focusing in pragmatic growth.

Regardless of the size of the fleet, every airline has expenses incurred by their fleet and network planning units which use different databases and systems. With the new special solution “Rent-a-plan” airlines benefit from continuous network planning support at a minimum cost. They enjoy access to the most advanced network planning tools, data, advanced methodologies and skills from a specialist partner instead of extending “in-house” resources and investing additional funds for these tasks.

Lufthansa Consulting dedicated personnel supports carriers using this approach throughout the entire planning workflow such as long-term (once in every three years), mid-term (once a year) and short-term (twice a year prior to season start). Estonian Air and Lufthansa Consulting are using the network planning tool powered by LiftPlan as a technical platform for the "Rent-a-plan" service.

“In order to develop schedules and network, we constantly need to analyze people’s travel patterns and the competition situation on the market. We have worked with Lufthansa Consulting in the past, but now for the first time, we have access to needed information and data systems in a customized and cost efficient way, so that our analysts can make decisions based on state of the art of technology in the field of commercial planning,” says Estonian Air’s Chief Commercial Officer Rauno Parras.

“Rent-a-plan” boosts quality and speed of planning at small and medium size airlines without additional overhead costs", states Ala Toukatli, Partner and Principal Airline Strategy and Network. “We are pleased to see that Estonian Air is once again a pioneer and innovator and that other airlines across the globe are recognizing the practical value of our approach”, added Toukatli.

Estonia is the fastest growing aviation market in Europe and Estonian Air has achieved year on year growth of 24%. The airline successfully uses “Rent-a-plan” service already in practice.

A group of interested clients will attend Lufthansa Consulting’s launch workshop during the “Wings of Russia International Aviation Forum” in Moscow. The aviation experts will introduce the concept and present Estonian Air’s success story. They will also share their experience with supporting airlines world-wide.