Blog Archives
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The Other Side To The Swissport Ukraine Saga
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 30, 2013
There were two press conferences recently with Swissport and Ukraine International Airlines telling their respective sides of recent court action in Ukraine that ruled in favor of UIA. Up until that time, we heard more from Swissport than we did from UIA. We'll have more in our May issue on the story. In the meantime, here's a Q&A we conducted with Evgeniya Satskaya, UIA's corporate press secretary. Q: I understand that UIA went to court based on a mere discussion of a further capital investment that would result in the dissolution of UIA’s holding. A: It was not a discussion. On March 6th 2012 SPI held the GSM where SPI voted in favor of dilution of UIA’s shareholding in SPU, that was the default under the Participant's... -
The Regional Airline Industry
By Ronald Donner - Thursday April 25, 2013Nearly 50 percent of the nation’s commercial airline schedule today is operated by Regional Airlines. One of every five domestic airline passengers will travel on one of the 2,700 regional aircraft that serve around 658 cities across the U.S. In 470 of those cities regional airlines provide the only scheduled service. Regional Airlines make about 13,000 flights a day carrying about 160 million passengers a year. Looking after their best collective interesst is the Regional Airline Association (RAA), a business association headquartered in Washington, D.C. RAA represents members’ interests in Congressional hearings and before the Department of Transportation, the FAA and other agencies. Back a few decades these airlines were known as... -
How to Make A Company Great!
By ServiceElements, Christine Hill - Wednesday April 24, 2013What does it take to be a truly GREAT Company? In a recent article in Harvard Business Review, researchers presented their findings for a two year study that identified top-performing companies*. Their data came from 25,000 companies that have traded on U.S. exchanges anytime from 1966 to 2010. They not only identified top performers, but tried to find common reasons why these companies held their status for so long. The top companies were put into three categories: Miracle Worker , Long Runner and Average Joe according to their competitive positioning. There were a total of 174 Miracle Workers . Miracle Workers were companies that fell in the top 10% of ROA (return on assets) for a significant amount of time. Long Runners... -
Readers Sound Off About High Turnover
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 23, 2013Earlier this month, John Goglia asked a simple question in a blog after he read the news about a deicing incident in Canada: Is high turnover on the ramp causing simple errors? We posted John’s blog on several LinkedIn groups, including our own, and received almost 20 responses. Have a look at a handful of responses: “ Without a shadow of doubt , yes!! In the last 20 years I have seen a shift from Full-Time employment to that of Part-Time Employment. Thus, what was once seen as a career working on the Apron and climbing the ladder. We now see the role as nothing more than a ‘job’, and one that has to be supplemented by another Part-Time job in another industry just to make ends meet. Combine this with a sever lack of... -
FBO Management Course
By John Goglia - Monday April 22, 2013
As you may remember, several months ago I asked for Ground Support Worldwide readers’ help in preparing an FBO management program . As president of the Independent Fixed Base Operators Association, I had heard over and over from our members of the difficulty to recruit supervisors and managers with the knowledge and skills necessary to supervise and manage an FBO operation. To that end, we asked Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in NY – where I am an adjunct professor - to develop FBO courses that would lead to a certificate in FBO management. A number of you responded to my request for help by posting comments on this Web site or on LinkedIn or emailing me directly. All were very helpful, some particularly... -
Givers and Takers: Part II
By ServiceElements, Christine Hill - Wednesday April 17, 2013Last week’s article expressed the importance of recognizing that every organization’s success depends on the generosity of its employees. Every organization has employees that make decisions every day about whether to be givers or takers. To continue this topic, we return to the study done by Stanford University on givers and takers in organizations. The least productive workers in this study were givers —workers who had done many more favors for others than they had received. But when Flynn turned his spotlight on the top-producing workers, he found that they, too, were givers who did more favors than they received. Those in the middle were the takers . The successful givers produced 50% more annual revenue, on... -
Weapons on Planes
By Art Kosatka - Wednesday April 17, 2013
To its credit, TSA continues to do its mandated job: finding weapons and other prohibited items at screening checkpoints throughout the country. The chart shows just one week of guns discovered during mid-March, and contrary to my own view that they might be concentrated in one region, they are pretty much everywhere. The same week yielded eight stun guns in carry-on and eight inert grenades in checked baggage. While I seriously doubt that any of the gun-bearers had grandiose visions of hijacking, the fact remains that weapons in carry-on are illegal, and in today’s security-intense environment, one would have to be pretty dense to claim they “forgot” they are packing heat on an airplane (the most typical excuse), or to do so... -
History Of Regional Passenger Bridges
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 16, 2013
We'll turn this week's blog over to Ed Jacob who recently filled us in by email on how passenger bridges for regional aircraft came to be: “Here is my recollection of the birth of the jetbridge adaptor for regional aircraft. “Simmons Airlines, aka American Eagle were operating ATRs in the Chicago market (both 42s and 72s) when I got a call one day to come down to the Champaign (CMI) airport. “I flew down and met the staff whereupon GM Rick Gorham introduced me to one of his staff - Gordon Stewart (NOTE: Ed’s not sure of the spelling of Gordon’s last name.) Gordon, who always had an impish smile, asked if I'd like to see something they were working on, whereupon he cranked up the jetbridge and swung it around to a position... -
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 16, 2013“Here is my recollection of the birth of the jetbridge adaptor for regional aircraft. “Simmons Airlines, aka American Eagle were operating ATRs in the Chicago market (both 42s and 72s) when I got a call one day to come down to the Champaign (CMI) airport. “I flew down and met the staff whereupon GM Rick Gorham introduced me to one of his staff - Gordon Stewart (EDITOR'S NOTE: Ed’s not sure of the spelling of Gordon’s last name.) Gordon, who always had an impish smile, asked if I'd like to see something they were working on, whereupon he cranked up the jetbridge and swung it around to a position close to the aft (and only) passenger door on the ATR. He then pushed an aluminum ramp out to the door sill of the ATR, and voila...
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Aviation doesn’t settle for average
By Ronald Donner - Thursday April 11, 2013Paging through the May 2013 Consumer Report, a small article on page 11 titled “U.S. hospitals still not safe” caught my attention. The article explained how more hospitals are required to track and report safety data, and it provided a summary and a few rankings based on a 100-point scale. The average score was 49; highest 72 and the lowest mentioned 14. Also mentioned was teaching hospitals, “which are supposed to prepare future doctors” are lagging. I’m not a health care professional and understand a comparison between aviation services and hospitals regarding safety, quality, and risk management is perhaps not an easy or even fair comparison. But the article did prompt me to think these two industries share some...
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Events
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- 05/19/13 - 05/22/13
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