Originally Posted by dliesse
Once upon a time, W&B was calculated locally at the airport. At the smaller stations I would guess the crew did it themselves; at larger stations there was a small group of employees dedicated to load planning. My understanding is that it has all been centralized at WHQ as a cost-saving move (don't have to pay the load planners at the airports anymore). Extra computer power isn't an excuse; they could be accessed remotely if that was the only issue.
Once upon a time was about a year ago, and no, the crew didn't do it themselves. Since the computations were never done "planesidie" by the crew, but had to be relayed via radio to the load planner, this is one of the areas were centralizing it loses very little in performance and generates much savings in terms of efficieny. It also most likely improves performance as the volumes done by the central people should increase their specialization and skill.
You gotta break a few eggs to make an egg salid sandwich (how do you spell omlette?)