Tackling Challenges in the Airline Industry in a very 'INFORMish' Webinar

the Countdown is On

30 minutes to go! - The atmosphere is buzzing. Presenter Joshua Baker, and experts Bernadette Schaefer and Michael Reinkober are given subtle make-up to prevent any unwanted shine on camera. Lights and mixer are ready, the Wi-Fi connection is stable.

The two INFORM experts receive final stage directions: “Remember not to look into the camera when answering a question from the presenter. Look at the presenter. It's a conversation between two people that the audience sees, not a lecture.” No problem, after all, they rehearsed several times. And yet: “You've actually seen it a thousand times on TV,” says Product Manager Michael Reinkober. “But when you're sitting there yourself, it's something else.”

Challenges in the airline industry: small and medium-sized operations

It's almost showtime! A final quick process discussion in which all participants go through the content. Preparation is everything! This time, we discuss how to improve processes on small and medium-sized operations. These have their very own requirements.

Regardless of the actual size of the airport, they indicate the size of the airline's operations stationed and managed there. The most important indicator for the definition of “small and medium-sized operation” is the number of daily departures. If this is less than around 15, this definition applies. Operations of this size usually have only a few employees. It is not uncommon for one person to manage everything and therefore have many responsibilities. These employees need to be relieved. The whole operation should run more smoothly, errors or delays should have less impact.

Small, lightweight solutions that can be implemented quickly and are therefore appropriate for the limited resources of smaller stations are suitable here. Powerful solutions with a multitude of functions, variables and arbitrarily scalable settings for the number of managed human resources and GSE tend to be reserved for the extremely complex day-to-day business of turnstiles. Keith Allen from Alaska Airlines and Bernadette Schaefer, Product Manager at INFORM, talked about this situation and how the challenges in the airline industry can be solved with the new development GS RegionMaster.

Empowering Airline Frontline Managers

In the second part, Allen and INFORM Product Manager Michael Reinkober elaborated on the challenges frontline managers face at smaller operations. Their job is ultimately to make the operation run smoothly so all flights can depart on time. It is highly beneficial for them if their responsibility is strengthened and they are empowered to solve problems that arise, not only independently, but also quickly and efficiently, thereby significantly improving the operation.

Another new development, GS TeamWork, supports them in this. Whether loading baggage, at check-in or during the boarding process - the app supports fast mobile communication and helps to quickly identify and reallocate capacities from the available staff.

Wrapping Up: A Live Q&A Session

After the first two parts had ended with lots of insights and useful information for the viewers, the experts took questions from the audience in the third part, the live Q&A. There were so many that the planned 60-minute duration of the webinar was not quite long enough to answer them all. Afterwards: Relief, done! Praise from some viewers made a worthy conclusion to the event.

Curious for more? If you would like to watch the webinar about challenges in the airline industry for free and in full length, click here.