A-CDM and Optimisation of Airport Processes and Terminal Resources

Increased efficiency at new Swissport Finland after exemplary transfer of Finnair Ground Handling to Swissport.

The secret of success for a smooth and, for both companies, beneficial take-over was close cooperation and the fact that Swissport and Finnair were experts and long-time users of INFORM’s GroundStar IT suite, the software that optimizes airport and ground handling processes.

When Finnair took the decision to concentrate on their core business, thus sell their Helsinki ground handling operation to Swissport, the challenge was to separate the ground handling operation from Finnair’s catering and customer services departments. The three departments were closely interlinked by one configuration, server and database in the use of their GroundStar IT based resource planning, rostering and deployment.

“The key factor for success was that the Swissport IT environment was compliant with the Finnair one and, of course, the GroundStar IT experience that the Swissport team brought in,“ comments Tero Laitinen, Director IT, Finnair.

After a six month period, Swissport and Finnair announced the completion of a successful migration. Both companies emphasized the exemplary process and its satisfying results. “We believe the experts involved on both sides, the excellent team work and the fact that the project goal was quite clear to everybody involved right from the beginning were all key factors for success. A critical aspect was that there was no learning phase: after the cut-over everything had to be at least of the same quality and performance,” says Philipp Schlatter, CTO Chief Technology Officer, Swissport.

As a consequence of the restructuring undertaken by Swissport, the former Finnair staff had to adapt to new processes, set ups, ways of working and business rules. Different interfaces such as for the payroll system had to be established. The whole transition was carried out in close cooperation between both companies with some help from application and interface experts such as Axedo, INFORM and other partner companies.

“It was important to have a local expert, as well as data flow, interface and application specialists in order to make this a successful migration project. The Finnair and Swissport application specialists worked closely together to ensure a smooth transfer of knowledge,” explains Schlatter. In the end, Swissport knowledge was combined with Finnair experience to produce a highly competitive ground handling operation.

Today Swissport Finland includes about 600 employees, 100 electronic workstations and only one IT expert at Helsinki Airport. The heart of the GroundStar system, its data and server center, is based in Zurich, which guarantees cost effectiveness, as well as easy maintenance and support for Swissport.

“The results of the migration to Swissport justify our decision to outsource what is not our core business. We now have a powerful partner who is able to maximize the efficiency of the operation and deliver high quality services, including the real-time data that we need for GS HubControl, our turn-around management system,” states Laitinen. The latter was an important goal of the migration phase. Finnair uses the GS HubControl system to monitor their hub or turnaround operation and to identify factors that may negatively affect a seamless turnaround. All the related processes and events are controlled in a cohesive manner, which requires real-time information from the ground handling parties involved. Laitinen confirms:” GS RealTime was maintained to the same quality and today, GS HubControl receives the same quality of data as before, which proves the success of the project to us.”