april2021 - 21

GROUND SERVICE
PROVIDERS

Crozier notes that while technology has
reduced the difficulty of data collection,
said technology needs be accessible to
everyone otherwise the target is missed.
" We have a very diverse team, which is
great, but you also need to make sure that
this new technology is accessible to everyone, " he says.

on the GDPR framework. We invest in
resources to make sure that we understand
and get it right. We have a DPO (data privacy office), which helps us actually to,
depending on the country, depending on
the stakeholder, understand the risk and
the exposure and define appropriate mitigation rules, " Crozier says.

Crozier gives the example of baggage
reconciliation and tracking technology
(BRTS) as not being as ubiquitous as some
may assume.
" When you introduce and enforce new
technologies such as BRTS, you need to
make sure that you take all of your people
onto the journey, " he continues.
Of course, an even larger concern around
data collection is data security and privacy.
Crozier says data security is of critical
importance.
He notes that the privacy question is
still a newer topic, compared to security.
However, it's a question that the industry
is exploring.
" It's very dynamic and we are very careful about this. We baseline our processes

Securing data is one concern, another
is making sure that it is sound. There is
always a risk that false data or the misreading of data can creep into the collection
and analysis process. Crozier says the best
way to avoid these possibilities is to remove
as much manual intervention as possible
and automate wherever viable. " If you can
actually increase interfaces such as API,
you reduce the risk of data capture failure. "
The issue can be compounded when an
organization is collecting too much data or
not putting the data they collect to good
use. Crozier notes that if an organization
is not properly using the data it collects,
it's a waste of time and resources. Picking
the right key performance indicators (KPIs)
is critical.

Photo courtesy of dnata

can increase if you have the right tool. You
can give that capability to any of your staff,
complying staff who can instantly report
back something. So that's definitely giving
us a much more accurate picture and higher
quantity of data, which is really good.
" So, thanks to this, we can improve on
planning, be more proactive and sometimes, a bit predictive, which is still very
early stage. But using historical data and
some machine learning capability that you
see more and more today, that's definitely
opened some new doors. "
Kris Kristmanns, IT service manager
ground handling, Swissport, says collecting
data allows the company to better understand variances between forecasting and
actual performance.
" The target is ultimately to use the
insights gained to reduce that gap. With
time, collecting and combining different
sets of data will enable us to become even
more efficient. In the future, I expect that
we will be able to deliver services that are
designed based on individual customer
needs, " Kristmanns says.
The data being collected by Swissport is
mostly volume and timestamp data, granularly down to a flight level, passenger/bag
numbers, check-in times, bag volumes and
entry times.
Like dnata, technological advances
have bolstered Swissport's data collection
capabilities.
" The technical changes for ground handling were significant. We have moved
from manually collating data in spreadsheets from various sources to computer
or handheld supported service, " says Kristmann. " Process and service optimization
using information technology has been
crucial to Swissport's ground handling
business's success that today counts for
roughly 80 percent of Swissport's revenue. "
Kristmann says that there is no doubt
that Swissport's processes have become
more efficient using computer-based
support systems; roster optimization and
real-time task assignment have become
rule-based and computer-assisted.
" Data exchange is increasingly automated, and baggage handling loading
supervision is more and more automated, "
he adds.

APRIL 2021

AviationPros.com

21
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april2021

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