As one of the world’s largest handling companies, Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) is bidding for the ramp services licence put out to tender by AENA for its network of 43 airports.
Speaking to GHI at the 34th IATA Ground Handling Conference in Paris, Josep Fargas, Managing Director – Ground Handling Spain, and Jordi Campderros, Business Development and Project Manager explained more about the tender and WFS’s plans for ground handling in Spain.
Every seven years, AENA issues a tender to provide ramp services across its 43 airports. The final tender was published on 6 July, offers must be submitted by 6 November and the results are expected to be published in March 2023 with operations to start later in the year.
“At the end, you are submitting offers for one of the individual medium and large airports or for a lot of small ones. These licences last for seven years,” explained Fargas.
AENA has already given WFS licences to operate in Madrid, Seville, Asturias, Santiago, and Vitoria. WFS also handles Airbus’s Beluga factory in Getafe, managing ground movements and load planning. In Valencia, WFS looks after Vueling’s passenger services and provides service supervision.
In the ground handling sector in Spain, WFS is a relatively new arrival; it was awarded the tender by AENA in 2014, effective from 2015. WFS had been providing cargo services in Spain for many years before that in Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia.
He said: “We took advantage of those seven years to get to know the different type of airports, and to build strong partnerships with the local industry, meet the local airport authorities, competitors, and the unions. That is why we are now ready to take a step forward because we have the local experience and the support and experience of a large company in this process.”
AENA opened up the market in 1993 with local providers occupying the market at first before international players entered at a later date. When selecting providers, AENA wants proof of technical and financial solvency.
“Our intention is to leverage our experience in the local market in Spain and globally. We are confident that we can deliver the best-in-class quality of service our customers and AENA expect from a partner,” said Fargas.
Innovation and sustainability are key demands from AENA, and Fargas believes the extensive work initiated in recent years in these areas puts WFS in a strong position.
“During the past seven years, we have introduced a range of sustainability initiatives and IT systems that will support our candidacy. This includes the electrification of certain ground support equipment, new operational and safety systems, as well as improving our environmental performance and monitoring of CO2 emissions,” he said.
Balancing local people with the global business is key because both sides can learn from each other. Both sides have regular meetings covering subjects such as safety and sustainability, and the same systems used in markets such as the US are being used in Spain.
Fargas said: “You can’t simply implement your global formula in Spain, you have to adapt your global formula to the Spanish infrastructure and stakeholders. Being global is a huge advantage but not understanding the local particularities of each market would be a mistake. With the local know-how of the market, together with experience from other countries, you get a lot of know-how.”
WFS has been standardising processes in ground handling, meaning everyone is talking the same language, said Fargas. Three systems had to be changed, the planning and rostering system, which is the same one as WFS uses in the US, the safety management system (SMS), which was implemented globally and for cargo, and most recently the operations management system, implemented this year.
“It is a very powerful system that lets us to trace the customisation of our services to each of our customers because they ask for different things, as well as the quality we are delivering,” he said.
Sustainability
Operating in a sustainable manner is vital, especially as aviation is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, both in the air and on the ground.
WFS has a new KPI of doing zero-emission turnarounds in Seville but such measures have to be the norm because more and more customers include environmental questions in their tenders.
Campderros said: “WFS was already following Agenda 2030 before the pandemic. However, the crisis increased the need for sustainability and as a result AENA incorporated this in their tender papers. So it became a must.”
WFS has always been open to new ideas, so equipment providers came to them to test their products in the Spanish market.
“They have been using our operation to test their equipment and the most innovative things are going towards sustainability. There are safety features and autonomous vehicles, but the real new features are new electrical and solar equipment. They are real, five years ago they were small projects but now we have tested them,” said Campderros.
For this contract, he said, WFS formed a team called HORIZONTE-23 or H23, a group of people preparing the offers by rethinking ground handling for the future.
He explained, “Environmental matters are very important, we are looking for efficiency and innovation. We are also focusing on well-being initiatives for our staff as they are our capital, and it is essential that we take care of them.”
WFS asked its people what GSE they wanted and H23 looked at who and what WFS wanted to be as a handler.
New GSE, often electric, is being trialled in Spain before assessments need to take place to decide whether they can be incorporated into the fleet.
Infrastructure for electric equipment remains an issue, and when submitting offers, AENA will ask about the requirements and make it available.
Fargas said: “Airlines, airports, and handlers must work together. AENA is fully focused but when you are talking about airports and new handlers bringing in a lot of new machines, this is not infrastructure that you can build in one day. AENA is openly asking the providers what they need and they are thinking about their strategy because the electrical equipment will change the way we manage equipment.”
Campderros added: “When you think about sustainability, you go to things that we are already doing such as telemetry, electrical equipment and new engines but there are simple things like eco-driving lessons for the staff, teaching them efficient driving techniques to save fuel and have less of an impact on the environment. Training them on green initiatives is very important, it is not just about technology, it is also about people.”
The ramp contract, which starts in late 2023, will consolidate all the hard work in Spain over the years.
Fargas said: “For WFS, this is a huge opportunity because we started with five licences, now we can leverage to grow and with this growth, make our way of ground handling more slick and solid for innovation. As the biggest cargo handler in the world, we are trying to create synergies and we are working on coordinating ground handling with cargo to provide a better service to our biggest customers.”
