Narrative:

I think that we have some problems with the [our proprietary flight planning system] flight planning system; particularly in the domestic operation. I just flew my first trip using [our proprietary flight planning system] ; to lax and return with a short layover in lax. We had two major problems. 1. It is too time consuming; especially with a one hour report time for a domestic trip. On the first leg to lax it was not a problem because I showed up plenty early to acquaint myself with the system with the aid of one of the facilitators. But in lax our pickup time from the hotel was exactly 1+15 prior to departure time. There are no high speed printers in the flight planning rooms at the concourses so I had to make the trek down to flight operations to print the paperwork; do a very quick and cursory review of it; call dispatch to have fuel added because I was concerned about weather and thunderstorms in the middle of the country; and then reprint the operational flight plans after that conversation. This took at least an extra 10 minutes of walking down to operations and back out to the gate and the first officer was not involved at all in the planning process because he had gone directly to the airplane after we arrived at the airport in his efforts to get the airplane ready and out on time. We got the flight out on time only because we probably cut an unacceptable number of corners in the process. I'm not going to do that again. After we arrived back in base; I discussed this time crunch problem with the same facilitator that had helped us at the beginning of the trip. He suggested that one solution would be to call dispatch and have them send the papers to me via e-mail for review prior to going out to the airport. Now my wake up call was already very early that morning! I'm not interested in getting up any earlier to do work that needs to be done at the airport. Also; I'm one of those dinosaurs that doesn't drag a computer along with me on every layover. And I'm still not going to be interested in putting in extra non-paid work even after we get tablet's. And it still doesn't address the lack of printers. 2. The [proprietary flight planning system] routing planned us directly through the worst part of a weather system in the great plains. I expressed some reservations about this to the dispatcher but he was not too concerned because as he said; 'this is november and the storms don't get as high as they do in the summer.' I didn't agree with him and asked for more fuel for potential deviations. As it turned out; after we launched out of lax and before we even reached cruise altitude; the dispatcher sent us an ACARS message suggesting that we ask for a different routing further north to avoid some high cells that were touching our planned route and to the south of it in the ok/ks area. My point is that I am concerned that dispatchers may be too quick to accept [our proprietary flight planning systems] most efficient routings and not looking at other factors like weather and turbulence. I suggest two things that could be done to help with the time crunch. First and fastest; have flight operations print flight planning documents and have them ready for flight crew review in the same manner that they now do for international flights. Second; we need to have the high speed printers available in the flight planning rooms out on the concourses. In lax it requires at least an extra 10 minutes of walking to get down to operations and back out to the gate areas. If the company wants to use the [proprietary flight planning system] as the sole flight planning and operating system; then we need to have the tools to make it work. I'm not unhappy with the [proprietary flight planning system] as such. I think that it can be useful and in many ways superior product to the ancient system that we were/are using. But it simply requires too much work for the pilots in the current one hour prior to departure time slot for flight planning that we currently have. In the future; I will not allow my first officer's to bypass the flight planning process to try to make up for the company's shortsighted ideas. Nor will I allow myself to be rushed through this process and put my aircraft; passengers; crew members; and my own license and reputation at risk. I have never deliberately delayed a flight for non-operational reasons in my career but if the time required to do the [proprietary flight planning system] flight planning properly on domestic legs means that flights are delayed; then so be it. I am not a chronic complainer but I do think that there are serious safety issues at stake here. I don't think that with more experience with the system that I could have hurried the process along any faster than I did in lax. [Our proprietary flight planning system] is potentially a very good system but we need to address the fact that with all of the printing and reprinting it takes more time than our current planning process allows.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air Carrier Captain laments the route planning of the new Sabre Flight Planning software in regards to enroute weather; and the time it takes to print on the printers available to the flight crew's.

Narrative: I think that we have some problems with the [our proprietary flight planning system] flight planning system; particularly in the domestic operation. I just flew my first trip using [our proprietary flight planning system] ; to LAX and return with a short layover in LAX. We had two major problems. 1. It is too time consuming; especially with a one hour report time for a domestic trip. On the first leg to LAX it was not a problem because I showed up plenty early to acquaint myself with the system with the aid of one of the facilitators. But in LAX our pickup time from the hotel was exactly 1+15 prior to departure time. There are no high speed printers in the flight planning rooms at the concourses so I had to make the trek down to FLT OPS to print the paperwork; do a very quick and cursory review of it; call Dispatch to have fuel added because I was concerned about weather and thunderstorms in the middle of the country; and then reprint the operational flight plans after that conversation. This took at least an extra 10 minutes of walking down to OPS and back out to the gate and the First Officer was not involved at all in the planning process because he had gone directly to the airplane after we arrived at the airport in his efforts to get the airplane ready and out on time. We got the flight out on time only because we probably cut an unacceptable number of corners in the process. I'm not going to do that again. After we arrived back in base; I discussed this time crunch problem with the same facilitator that had helped us at the beginning of the trip. He suggested that one solution would be to call Dispatch and have them send the papers to me via e-mail for review prior to going out to the airport. Now my wake up call was already very early that morning! I'm not interested in getting up any earlier to do work that needs to be done at the airport. Also; I'm one of those dinosaurs that doesn't drag a computer along with me on every layover. And I'm still not going to be interested in putting in extra non-paid work even after we get tablet's. And it still doesn't address the lack of printers. 2. The [proprietary flight planning system] routing planned us directly through the worst part of a weather system in the Great Plains. I expressed some reservations about this to the Dispatcher but he was not too concerned because as he said; 'This is November and the storms don't get as high as they do in the summer.' I didn't agree with him and asked for more fuel for potential deviations. As it turned out; after we launched out of LAX and before we even reached cruise altitude; the Dispatcher sent us an ACARS message suggesting that we ask for a different routing further north to avoid some high cells that were touching our planned route and to the south of it in the OK/KS area. My point is that I am concerned that dispatchers may be too quick to accept [our proprietary flight planning systems] most efficient routings and not looking at other factors like weather and turbulence. I suggest two things that could be done to help with the time crunch. First and fastest; have FLT OPS print flight planning documents and have them ready for flight crew review in the same manner that they now do for international flights. Second; we need to have the high speed printers available in the flight planning rooms out on the concourses. In LAX it requires at least an extra 10 minutes of walking to get down to OPS and back out to the gate areas. If the company wants to use the [proprietary flight planning system] as the sole flight planning and operating system; then we need to have the tools to make it work. I'm not unhappy with the [proprietary flight planning system] as such. I think that it can be useful and in many ways superior product to the ancient system that we were/are using. But it simply requires too much work for the pilots in the current one hour prior to departure time slot for flight planning that we currently have. In the future; I will not allow my First Officer's to bypass the flight planning process to try to make up for the Company's shortsighted ideas. Nor will I allow myself to be rushed through this process and put my aircraft; passengers; crew members; and my own license and reputation at risk. I have never deliberately delayed a flight for non-operational reasons in my career but if the time required to do the [proprietary flight planning system] flight planning properly on domestic legs means that flights are delayed; then so be it. I am not a chronic complainer but I do think that there are serious safety issues at stake here. I don't think that with more experience with the system that I could have hurried the process along any faster than I did in LAX. [Our proprietary flight planning system] is potentially a very good system but we need to address the fact that with all of the printing and reprinting it takes more time than our current planning process allows.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.