Airline Operations Solutions, Inc. was founded in 2004 by Michael E. Irrgang, and was dedicated to improving operational efficiency and reducing costs in airlines. Michael has been performing the same services of delay analysis & reduction, fuel conservation, operational efficiency improvement, etc. for Boeing’s airline customers.as an SME and software product manager for Boeing since 2007, and now as an independent consultant

Some highlights at Boeing: operational audits at 60 different airlines, led development teams for multiple airline operations software products, one of the co-inventors for Boeing’s Flight Deck Advisor, which reduces fuel burn in cruise by up to 2% and is now in use by many airlines, saved a major Latin American airline $4 million per year in reduced delay costs in 2023, developed new methodologies for identifying inefficiencies in flight plans, developed new methodologies for analyzing and identifying delay costs, saved a major Latin American airline $6 million per year by reducing arrival fuel by 1,000 kilos on narrowbody aircraft, providing major carbon reduction.  This via an innovative new approach to flight planning and use of alternates, first pioneered by Mike Irrgang at American Airlines and implemented at several other airlines as well.

Michael E. Irrgang is an internationally-known expert in most aspects of airline operations. A 40-year career started in I.T. and transitioned to Airline Operations, including employment at American Airlines, and as a vice president of LAN Chile (LATAM Airlines) and Air Jamaica, in Operations.  Some of Michael’s key professional accomplishments include:

• Since 2019 co-chairman of the AGIFORS Airline Operations Study Group. Hosted AGIFORS 2001 Conference in Jamaica. Hosted AGIFORS 2016 in Seattle. As chairman, organized AGIFORS 2019 in Paris; AGIFORS 2020, 2021 and 2022 online; AGIFORS 2024 in Hamburg, and most recently AGIFORS 2025 in Doha.  Presented at many other AGIFORS Operations conferences on issues related to Irregular Operations, delay analysis, delay costing, delay reduction, fuel conservation & payload optimization
• Two patents at Boeing: 2009 US Patent #7,565,331 Cost Assessment Methodology for Airline Delay & Disruption; 2020 US Patent #10,665,114 Aircraft Fuel Optimization Analytics.  Also, two additional patents pending
• One earlier patent at Texas Instruments: 1989 US Patent #5,182,793 Symbolic Spreadsheet software tool and methodology for Operations Decision Support, which led to the creation of a family of knowledge-based decision support systems for airline operations including gate systems, maintenance scheduling systems and irregular operations decision support & recovery, implemented at United, Air Canada, Northwest, Thai Airways, and Iberia
• Published six papers in Aviation Week’s “Handbook of Airline …” series: on airline irregular operations & fuel conservation in the “Handbook of Airline Economics” (1995); on airline revenue management in the “Handbook of Airline Marketing” (1997); on airline operations efficiency & on integrating passenger and cargo operations in the “Handbook of Airline Operations” (2000); on airline strategy in the 3rd world in the “Handbook of Airline Strategy” (2001)
• Subject of articles on groundbreaking approach to Airline Operations Decision Support in a variety of publications in 1987-1989, including “Air Transport World”, and “Aviation Week & Space Technology”.
• Assisted the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA) in developing & implementing an effective plan for a WGS-84 study, a complete airspace redesign, RNAV & GPS SIDs, STARs & training
• Served as member of Board of Directors of IACL (Inter-Caribbean Aeronautical Communications Limited) – which administered PIARCO FIR aero radio and overflight fees for the 13 Eastern Caribbean countries
• Member of the IATA workgroup to develop the Y2K contingency upper altitude ATC routes for Latin America and the Caribbean in 1999
• Member of the ICAO/IATA workgroup to develop the first upper altitude RNAV routes from South America to the U.S. in 2000
• Additional work coordinating the activities of different airlines with the FAA, the Jamaica CAA, the DGAC of Chile and the DGAC of Costa Rica
• While running the daily operations of Air Jamaica, Michael led operations which resulted in
  • becoming only the second foreign airline permitted to fly into the United States after 9/11 (British Airways was first)
  • being the only airline to operate all its flights successfully into the Northeast U.S. during the August 14, 2003 power blackout.
  • exceeding all major U.S. carriers in On-Time Performance in October 2003 with 89.5% arrivals within 15 minutes
  • becoming the first ever airline to temporarily relocate its Systems Ops Control Center (SOCC) from one country to another (Kingston, Jamaica to Miami, U.S.A), to partially maintain scheduled operations during Hurricane Ivan in September, 2004. This had to be approved by the FAA and the Jamaica CAA.

Michael Irrgang has a BS degree in Mathematics from the University of Washington and an MS degree in Computer Science from Northwestern University