As a group of 4000 pilots, dispatchers, and controllers, we stand for safety ahead of commerce. Al Jazeera interviewed our founder, Mark Zee, about the current risk in Ethiopian airspace created by the ATC strike, and why we care so much about getting the truth out to our members.
We’d like you to help test our New Daily Operations Brief.
Every morning, FSB provides the latest updates across 18 categories – including Airport, Runway, Fuel, Airspace, Procedures, Delays, Risk, Hazard, Severe Wx, Costs, Strikes, and Events – direct by email.
How? Subscribe below, and once you’ve seen a few, give us feedback on it.
OPSGROUP Members are already subscribed, no need to join again.
FSB continues to provide the weekly International Ops Bulletin every Wednesday to 50,000 readers.
Flight Service Bureau is now publishing a Daily Brief for the 4000+ airlines, pilots, operators, and dispatchers who are OpsGroup members.
Every morning, FSB provides the latest updates across 18 categories – including Airport, Runway, Fuel, Airspace, Procedures, Delays, Risk, Hazard, Severe Wx, Costs, Strikes, and Events – direct to OpsGroup members by email.
To receive the Daily Brief, as a member, you don’t need to do anything additional. To report any update back to the team, just hit reply.
If you are not a member and would like the Brief, plus the other benefits of OpsGroup, then you can check here for the group status and if we are currently accepting new members.
FSB continues to provide the weekly International Ops Bulletin every Wednesday to 50,000 readers.
Yep, there is. It’s called OPSGROUP. We’re a big mix: pilots, dispatchers, controllers, managers, tech specialists, aviation authorities – all with one thing in common: International Flight Operations.
Back in 2016, we figured out that great things happen when we solve problems together. Change is the biggest challenge, so we tell each other when we hear of something new. We keep each other safe by sharing information on risks.
Now we’d like you to get involved as well.
Why join us? Good question. Well, because if you don’t, you’ll miss a change and look like a chump. We don’t want that. You might overfly Libya. You might divert to Cayenne. You’ll only find out about the new rules when your G650 is impounded. You’ll pick the wrong handler because you didn’t get to see that Airport Spy review on Santiago from another member. You won’t know about that exemption. You won’t have anyone to ask whether you should stop at Keflavik or Reykjavik.
Life managing International Ops is hard enough without trying to do it all on your own. And we want you, because the more smart people like you we have in the group, the stronger it becomes. Pick a plan for yourself, or your team, or your entire flight department. There’s 1650 people waiting to answer your questions. And to pick your brain.
Read the reviews from existing members, and see why everyone from Airbus to the British Antarctic Survey to United Airlines is in the group. (hint: we’re all doing the same thing, and it’s getting easier).
On joining, we will send you, and each team member if you are on a team or department plan:
– a Welcome Email, explaining the group, together with your Welcome Pack:
– The full FSB Airports Database (value $375)
– The current full International Ops Bulletin
– Our Polar Ops Planning Guide
– Current NAT Plotting Chart (value $35)
You (and each team member, if you choose a team plan) will then also get:
– Immediate access to our OpsGroup Dashboard
– The weekly International Ops Bulletin every Wednesday
– Slack access to talk to the group
– Ask-Us-Anything – we answer your International Ops questions
– Airspace warnings and overflight risk summaries
– Access to Aireport – 2300+ Airport and ATC TripAdvisor style reviews
– Everything we publish – Guides, Lowdowns, Charts, Member Notes
– Tools and Maps
– All previous content since the group started
See examples of all the above
2 straightforward steps:
– Choose an Individual, Team, or Department plan
– We send you everything you need to get started by email
You can cancel anytime you like, before the next billing period.
New members – that’s you – are welcomed several times a year. The current status is notified on this page. To make sure that new members are fully supported, and the existing group retains its high quality, we limit joining to window periods during the year.
If we’re closed, you can join the waitlist to be notified of the next opening window.
In the last 30 years, there has been a massive change in how the world works: thank you, internet. We are witnessing a shift from the power of a central source – like government, and large corporations – to the power of the individual. Each of us is now connected to the entirety of human knowledge through a small, handheld device, and can connect with others to effect powerful and positive change.
OPSGROUP is founded on this premise. International Flight Operations is an inherently tricky area, full of gotcha’s and unforeseen changes for even the most diligent airline or aircraft operator. One operator versus a myriad of often unreadable government-sourced regulations and information – Notams, AIC’s, FAR’s – is a battle with guaranteed casualties.
But by connecting with other people, just like you, with the same problems and challenges, you can solve and share solutions.
When we started this group last year, we had a small handful of pilots, dispatchers, and managers that figured coming together in this way was a winner. As of November 2017, we’re now heading for 4,000 OPSGROUP members, with a great variety in operations roles: Airline and Corporate pilots, Military operators, Federal agencies, Flight Dispatchers and Schedulers, ATC, and Civil Aviation Authorities – all working together.
It’s still early days, and we have a way to go. But with some basic core principles – plain language (we call a spade a spade), operator and passenger safety ahead of lawyer-speak, cooperation instead of competition – and a huge appetite for development, there is much to gain.
So what’s good in the group? Read on …
First on the plate for almost every operator is staying current. Rules and regulations are changing with increased voracity. Did I miss something? Yep, almost definitely. Each week we produce the International Operations Bulletin. We try to cover all the big changes in the last 7 days. If we miss something, we’ve found that someone in the group is pretty quick to tell us, and it appears in the next one.
“We promise to keep it entertaining“. Without your attention, we’ve got nothing. Not only that, but we get as bored as you do with the standard aviation legal-language speak that permeates even the most important documents. Which is why sometimes we’ll run a Goat Show. Sometimes it’s just great to be “unprofessional“.
Like we said, approaching 4,000. All working together with the same goal: making International Flight Operations better. Click on the links to read what they say.
Airlines like United, Fedex, and Etihad
Small Part 91 Flight Departments like CAT3, Fayair, Pula
Big 135 Charter Operators like Jet Aviation, TAG and Netjets
Companies like Visa, IBM, and AT&T
Manufacturers like Boeing, Airbus, and Lockheed
International Pilots like Matt Harty, Bill Stephenson, and Timothy Whalen
Organisations like IFALPA, the NBAA, and CAA Singapore
MH17 was a tragedy that must not be repeated. A small handful of operators were privy to information on the risk, and the Notam writers of Ukraine that were aware of previous shoot-downs released the information in a language almost designed to confuse. Through our safeairspace.net project, we can now share risk information within OPSGROUP and make sure that every single member has access to a current picture of airspace risk.
One of our group members came to us with a great idea last year – why don’t we share our knowledge of operations at airports around the world. So we made a TripAdvisor style section in the member Dashboard, and allowed members to add their own reports on Airports, ATC, and Handlers. We now have 3000 or so reports.
We don’t need to explain this one too much. Everything the group has, in one place.
Slack is cool. It’s a chat app, but it’s more than that. Internally, we don’t use email anymore, we use slack. There are different channels like #crewroom, #todays-ops, #usefuldocs, and #questions. When there are special events, like #FranceATCStrike or #NewYorkSnow we open a special group for that. About 1200 members use this regularly, and it’s the perfect way to connect with other crews, ATC, or the Feds.
George is a bot. He’ll fetch information for you on airports, get weather, the NAT Tracks, and a few other things. We’re working on making him a little smarter.
Getting an answer to your question is what keeps us awake at night. There’s not much we can’t help with, but usually someone else in the group beats us to it. If not though, the FSB International Desk team will research that ops question that is threatening to make your life hell.
The best part of OPSGROUP is that we’re really just getting started. The future of the group is unwritten, but placing the planning power in your hands as an operator rather than 3rd parties, and having the security of knowing that the group has your back, is a great way to start. There is much to build and develop, and we’d love you to be involved!
You can choose an Individual, Team, or Flight Department membership. All the information on that is on the OpsGroup website. We limit joining windows to certain months of the year, so that we can be all hands on deck with building new things for the group once membership is closed. If we’re not accepting new members at the moment, you can waitlist for the next opening.
Tuesday, 4th April 2017- Manhattan, New York
Ops Group Meetup and Notam Summit
We’ve never done this before, but we’re going to run our first OpsGroup meetup. Emails and slacks are all fine, but human contact is where it’s at. Come along and meet us and other awesome members of the OpsGroup!
Location: Secret downtown location in Manhattan, we’ll meet at 9am-ish on Tuesday morning, 4th April. By 10am we’ll have kicked off into International Ops 2017 with Mark, NAT chats with Dave, Antarctica fireside stories with Jamie-Rose, and then move on to looking at stupid Notams and how to fix them. You should come!
Here is the deal:
0900 You arrive. So will others. We will mostly be pilots, dispatchers, ATC’s and flight dept managers but whatever your specialty is, come along.
930-ish We’ll start with the International Ops Chats- NAT ops, Antarctica, 2017 changes, and your questions.
1100 We’re probably still going with the International Ops Chats
1130 We’re onto talking NOTAMS by now
1300 Powerpoint has overheated, we’re done. Off to Lunch
1330 We’ll be having a late lunch. Join us for chats and beers, war stories, jokes, or head home instead- whatever you like.
1500 That’s All Folks. We can recommend: A visit to Concorde, go see a show on Broadway like School of Rock, go see the Nicks v Bulls, visit the Comedy Cellar, or get your Uber back to the Teterboro Holiday Inn.
Afterwards, tell us what you thought: team@ops.group
Jamie Rose McMillen from the FSB Int’l Desk is going to tell us some good stories from her six years living on the Ice. Find out how International Ops works in Antarctica and McMurdo Station. Join us in NYC!
There have been a city-full of changes to the International Ops world so far in 2017. A380 wake, no devices, BOE changes, ATC strike, Conflict Zones, 767 shooting, the end of Soviet QFE approaches. Mark will answer questions. Join us in NYC!
Dave Mumford will run through the new rules on the NAT, and answer questions from the My First Atlantic Flight guide. Just don’t ask him about the new contingency procedure. Join us in NYC!
NOTAMSJudging is finally complete in the Notam Goat Show. After we present the winners, we will have a good old fashioned competition, with prizes, and then get into the main event: How do we fix the Notam problem?
This afternoon I took a boat across the river to the Jersey side and looked back at New York City; amongst the skyscrapers in Midtown one stood out – the MetLife building. It seemed familiar – and I wondered why. I realised it was once the PanAm building: in a different era, this was the headquarters of Pan American World Airways.
Most interestingly, there was once a helicopter service, operated by PanAm in 1977, that connected downtown Manhattan with JFK, if you had a First or ‘Clipper Class’ ticket on a PanAm flight. The helicopter transfer, from the helipad on the roof of the PanAm building, took about 7 minutes – compare this to the 1 hour and 7 minutes it takes to get out to JFK these days – if you’re lucky.
Today, a couple of blocks west of the former PanAm building sits a lonely Concorde beside the Hudson, another nod to a time when aviation seems to have offered more convenience and speed than it does today.
So, the question is whether this is nothing more than nostalgia, or whether things were indeed, in some way, better back then. Everyone will have their own answer to that – we’ve lost Tristars with elevators, DC-8’s with their chrome and diesel and smoke and crackle, 727’s and Bac 1-11’s with their rear airstairs – and what have we gained? The newest arrivals – the C Series, the A350, the 787 – are sleek, fuel efficient, and open up new routes that weren’t possible before – but are pretty unspectacular.
No doubt though, the generation that got to fly and operate these aircraft looked back on the days of Flying Boats and DC-3 with equal fondness. I wonder whether the aircraft coming off the production lines today will evoke the same thoughts.
In International Flight Operations, though, it must be said that things are much improved. Compared to the era that spans the 70’s to the 90s, we’ve now got vastly improved flight planning systems, more direct routes, much better navigation systems, and we’ve largely moved from SITA, phone calls and fax machines to email when it comes to organising those flights. For the Dispatcher and Planner, there is no doubt that life is far easier. Even ten years ago, trying to arrange handling anywhere outside the US and Europe would take days to set up – now, the same trip can be arranged in 30 minutes.
We do have some new challenges. Airspace safety – and the risk to our aircraft overflying unstable regions, is of more concern now than at any time in history. Since MH17 two years ago, there have been many new areas to avoid. But how to know where, and why? Through The Airline Cooperative and OPSGROUP, we’ve worked as groups of Dispatchers, Controllers, and Pilots to share information so that when one person becomes aware of new information, everyone gets to hear about it. Our shared map shows the current status at safeairspace.net.
As a group, we’ve also been creating some new tools that help us – Aireport is our shared review site, where we can let each other know about good and bad experiences with Handlers, Airports, and ATC – whether it’s service, procedures, changes, or avoiding a fuel stop that’s going to cost you a fortune.
Maybe the biggest problem with all this new access to information is the overload one – the internet is the equivalent of a Shannon to Singapore NOTAM briefing. 80 pages of crap with a couple of important things stuck in the middle. Sometimes those important things are good to know, sometimes it’s critical information.
So how do you find those couple of critical things on the internet? You won’t have any trouble finding Aviation sites, but if you are managing an International Flight Operation of any sort – whether you’re the pilot, the dispatcher, the controller, the regulator, the ramp agent – whoever: how do you find out what’s new that will affect your flight.
That’s the question that bothers us at FSB every day of the week. We literally work on this every single day – and every day it becomes a little easier. Every Wednesday, we squeeze and condense the things that we’ve discovered this week into our weekly International Ops Bulletin – removing as much as possible until you’re left with only the critical stuff. The biggest source, and greatest help – is our amazing group of people in OPSGROUP.
Anyhow, I digress. Back to PanAm …
Yes, it’s the most common question we get. What is OPS GROUP ? Well, we’re not exactly sure yet. The question mark may well be part of the name, because to us it represents both a lack of constraints and limitless possibility. A beginners mind.
The energy within the group has astounded us. The OPS GROUP team has answered over 200 questions from members, but that engagement is not what surprised us. When we put questions back to the group ( in the form of curated Members Questions), the willingness to help, share and assist others is what did.
So, what we’re seeing is that amazing things happen when you connect similar, but different, people. In the Industry, we have great groups for Airlines (IATA, and our own Airline Cooperative), Business Aviation (NBAA), ATC (CANSO), Private Aviation ( AOPA). But they all combine like with like.
Like the best relationships, matching with a little bit different is far more interesting.
OPS GROUP – sticking with the big letters – brings everyone together in INTL FLT OPS. We all share the same airspace and go to the same airports. We all struggle to stay up to date, find most Notams confusing, hate having to organise permits, and wonder what will be next to change on the North Atlantic. Ask us to go somewhere new, and watch the stress levels rise.
And so we have a weird and wonderful group. The all-alone Corporate dispatcher, the overworked B777 F/O, the midnight supervisor at Eurocontrol, the grumpy Airline Dispatcher (yes Eric, that’s you), the permanently-airborne G4 driver, the Airbus ops team, and of course the Boeing guys and girls, the Irish ATC supervisor, the German Airline COO, the Russian CAA guy, the Australian meteorologist, and many hundreds more. Fast approaching 1000 members, in fact – and therefore becoming more useful for everyone. Literally hundreds of experts within the group.
When we started, we thought that OPS GROUP would just be a collection of people that wanted updates on International Ops from our Flight Service Bureau. We still run our now famous bulletin every Wednesday, and our Lowdowns, Ops Notices, Alerts, and Special Briefings – but the group is becoming huge amounts more than just receivers of information.
Personally, I think the key value of the group is it allows each one of us to feel more connected to International Flight Ops. Realising that there are hundreds of others in the same position that appreciate both your question and the group answer.
So, if I could try to best summarise OPS GROUP right now – it’s a secure environment where you’ll be ahead of the relentless changes in International Flight Ops, you’ll directly receive all FSB summaries of the big changes, can get answers from the team or the entire group for that troublesome ops question. You also get to feel really good when you share new information with the others, and answer the question that you’re an expert on.
But really, we’re still not quite sure what OPS GROUP is. Maybe when we pass 2000 members it will become clearer. Let’s see.
More about OPS GROUP:
Every Wednesday, Flight Service Bureau issues a weekly International Ops Bulletin for International Pilots, Dispatchers, ATC, Regulators, Authorities, Airlines and Aircraft Operators.
We cover this weeks changes to International Flight Operations – Airports, ATC, Procedures, New rules, Visas, Airspace alerts, Weather issues, and warnings and dangers to international aviation. Through OpsGroup and regular bulletin subscribers, we reach 40,000 people each week.
A short, free version is available here – usually delivered once a fortnight.
Sample? Take a look at one.
OR
Join OPSGROUP for full service
You can request membership of OPSGROUP to receive the full version delivered every Wednesday, along with all OPSGROUP member benefits: Members Questions, Group Discussions, Free maps and charts (normally $25), Full access to aireport for group reviews of handlers and airports, regular alerts for critical international ops info, Complimentary Airports Database (normally $375), Full access to safeairspace.net including updated risk alerts, and guidance and help when you want it on any International Operations topic (that last one is really useful!).
If you’re not sure yet, just have a look around this blog and you’ll get an idea of the type of thing you’ll get as a member – some of the content is posted publicly. Or ask us a question about OPSGROUP.
Join OPSGROUP. We are the the Pilots, Controllers, Dispatchers, Managers and Problem-solvers of International Flight Operations. We believe that by working together, we make everyone’s job easier
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