Narrative:

Showed up 30 minutes prior to check in and immediately started to try to pull up papers. I have never used the new flight planning system and knew I may struggle. Eventually; I found the subject matter expert; because even though I had classroom training and reviewed the slide show; I was unsuccessful at pulling up the papers. Subject matter expert was no more successful. He said that the server had an issue with the early domestic departures out of this station and frequently the papers would not print. After several discussions with dispatch to reset the paperwork; we still could not pull up the papers. Dispatch tried to email us the papers three times before we had everything we needed. It was now close to departure time. Couple this with all of the operations control changes that we are expected to learn on our own; being on reserve and vacation and not flying regularly; being called out late and both pilots commuting in late; and getting up early; and; in my opinion; we had a less than optimal situation; bordering unsafe. At the gate; the on board printer was spitting out volumes of unnecessary paperwork and we could not print the necessary paperwork until the volumes were finished printing. The whole new flight planning process is a huge mess. My recommendation is to discontinue it until flight operations can do it right. Why are you trying to turn this on at this station; on a fleet that is incurring huge operations control changes all at the same time? All of these changes at once are ridiculous and unsafe! All this took a considerable amount of time and we pushed 12 minutes late because I got to the plane very late.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Captain described the problems that a new flight planning system caused when the paperwork would not print. The supposed experts; could not solve the problems which resulted in a delay.

Narrative: Showed up 30 minutes prior to check in and immediately started to try to pull up papers. I have never used the new flight planning system and knew I may struggle. Eventually; I found the subject matter expert; because even though I had classroom training and reviewed the slide show; I was unsuccessful at pulling up the papers. Subject matter expert was no more successful. He said that the server had an issue with the early domestic departures out of this station and frequently the papers would not print. After several discussions with dispatch to reset the paperwork; we still could not pull up the papers. Dispatch tried to email us the papers three times before we had everything we needed. It was now close to departure time. Couple this with all of the Operations Control changes that we are expected to learn on our own; being on reserve and vacation and not flying regularly; being called out late and both pilots commuting in late; and getting up early; and; in my opinion; we had a less than optimal situation; bordering unsafe. At the gate; the on board printer was spitting out volumes of unnecessary paperwork and we could not print the necessary paperwork until the volumes were finished printing. The whole new flight planning process is a huge mess. My recommendation is to discontinue it until flight operations can do it right. Why are you trying to turn this on at this station; on a fleet that is incurring huge Operations Control changes all at the same time? All of these changes at once are ridiculous and unsafe! All this took a considerable amount of time and we pushed 12 minutes late because I got to the plane very late.

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.