Emirates Passenger Services supported by GroundStar

Approximately two years ago, Emirates implemented GS Rostering and GS Planning for Passenger Services. We can now report that GS RealTime and Reporting have recently ‘gone live’.

“Two of the factors behind the amazing success story of Emirates are innovation and forward thinking. Emirates continually evaluates what it does and considers how to ensure that the best possible service is provided. For this reason, considerable emphasis is placed on state-of-the-art IT support at Emirates Airport Services Department,” said Dale Griffith, Divisional Senior Vice President, Emirates Airport Services.

In 2005, GroundStar was implemented to enable the planning and rostering of the Emirates check-in and boarding staff. Consequently, a large number of 1,300 staff are managed with the help of this system. Emirates operates common check-in and this is supported by GroundStar’s ability to plan multi-flight tasks.

Emirates’ Passenger Service Department exclusively services its own airline. At present, more than 50 percent of all flight movements in and out of Dubai International Airport are Emirates flights.

This figure is expected to rise in the next few years as Emirates moves into its own new Terminal at Dubai International Airport in 2008. Such growth makes clear that the manual allocation of passenger services staff carried out to date is no longer feasible.

“Following the positive experience we had with GS Planning and GS Rostering, we felt that GroundStar RealTime would be the best support for our daily operations,” said Samir Abdul-Jalil, Resource Planning Manager Emirates.

The Gate Team Leaders were chosen for the pilot with the first implementation workshops starting in December 2006. Just four months later, in April 2007, the final cut-over took place, followed by GS RealTime going-live for Boarding staff in May 2007.

“The system has provided considerable relief to our staff involved in daily operations. One allocator is responsible for assigning approximately 100 staff in real-time and this is a task which would be very difficult to manage without the support of GroundStar,” continued Mr. Abdul-Jalil.

At the same time, the implementation of GroundStar Reporting for operational as well as management reports and DITES (Direct Telephone Input System ) took place. DITES is the automatic telephone-based dial-in system to announce new information to the users and/or to report the task status. The user communicates with GS RealTime via the telephone keyboard using touch-tone and DITES responds with a pre-recorded voice. During the implementation phase, Emirates’ management placed significant emphasis on ensuring there were state-of-the-art training methods.

“We developed an intranet home page just for GroundStar that contains information on the project status, project plan, the teams and gives useful advice. To facilitate the introduction of GS RealTime and DITES, we produced a DVD with user instructions and this has been distributed to the relevant employees,” explained Mr. Abdul-Jalil.

Next steps will include the introduction of PDAs to complement DITES, which will result in even more mobility and the possibility of displaying additional task information. GS RealTime will soon be implemented in the check-in area.

“It has been a pleasure to work with the Emirates team. I was impressed by the creative and motivated way that they supported the implementation of GroundStar,” said Margo van Bokhoven, Project Manager INFORM.

Emirates is the world-renowned international airline of the United Arab Emirates, based in Dubai. The Emirates Group includes the highly decorated airline, an international cargo division, a destination and leisure management division, an international ground handler and an airline IT developer. Together, they have received more than 300 international awards.

The Emirates route portfolio of 92 destinations throughout five continents is rapidly expanding. In the financial year 2006/07, Emirates carried 17.5 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo using one of the most modern fleets in the world. The average aircraft age is 63 months.

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