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The 800-Pound Gorilla In The Room …
By Steve Smith - Tuesday May 14, 2013Last week, a group of wheelchair attendants employed by PrimeFlight Aviation Services, asked the Occupational Health & Safety Administration to inspect working conditions at Philadelphia International Airport. The complaints, filed with OSHA’s Philadelphia regional office, allege violations of the federal Air Carrier Access Act and ask the Transportation Department to impose fines and order US Airways, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines to force PrimeFlight to correct the problems. Specifically, the workers allege that they do not receive training on how to help handicapped passengers, are exposed to blood and other bodily fluids without protection and are forced to use faulty equipment. Furthermore, the complaints contend that the... -
Soft Skills Have Hard Value
By ServiceElements, Christine Hill - Wednesday May 8, 2013Body builders and professional trainers understand the importance of and spend a lot of time building “core strength”. “Core” Training with regard to getting in shape is the balanced development of the deep and superficial muscles that stabilize, align, and move the trunk of the body, especially the abdominals and muscles of the back. It is now common understanding among many of these physical fitness professionals that without core training, optimum development will not be reached. The same is true in training for business and professional development. What has traditionally been referred to as “soft skills” training and includes proficiencies such as communication skills, conflict resolution and negotiation, personal... -
IATA Refines Its Ground Damage Database
By Steve Smith - Tuesday May 7, 2013We're attending this week’s IATA Ground Handling Conference in Vancouver, and ended the first day with a 90-minute workshop on the trade group’s refinements to its Ground Damage Database. “Airlines have collected data on accidents in many different buckets on their own,” said David Anderson, head of operational safety for British Airways and chairman of the GDDB. “It’s not a question of the quantity of the data, but the quality of the data.” The GDDB was originally launched in 2011 to act as a better funnel for the reasons and causes for aircraft damage. IATA spent time that same year to make sure the data was reported consistently so that it could be used to better measure the progress made against what is largely... -
Battery Myth No. 4
By Todd Allen - Tuesday May 7, 2013
True or False: You don’t have to charge at night. False: Most GSE chargers are “opportunity” chargers. This means that it’s safe to charge a battery for short periods of time, when there’s an opportunity. By plugging in periodically during the day, the state of charge of the battery remains relatively high and reduces or eliminates the need to get the battery to 100 percent at night. But in opportunity charge mode, the battery’s state of charge doesn’t get above 80 percent. Then two bad things happen: First, the electrolyte begins to “stratify.” The acid sinks to the bottom and the water rises to the top. Second, the battery begins to sulphate. The acid that went into the plates during discharge... -
Chilling Bagram 747 Video Hints At Accident's Cause
By John Goglia - Tuesday May 7, 2013Of course the facts are not all in and the accident investigation will take many months, but as a long-time accident investigator the video certainly hints of an aircraft stall that could have been caused by a sudden shift in the cargo load. In this case, we know from media reports that the cargo included heavy vehicles that would make a shift in load particularly significant. A stall at such a low altitude on takeoff is almost impossible for any flight crew to recover from. And we saw the tragic consequences with all seven people on board killed. A sudden shift in cargo can mean several things. Either the cargo was improperly loaded, improperly secured, the restraints broke or any combination of the above. As with most jobs in... -
L.I.D. Template for Meetings
By ServiceElements, Christine Hill - Wednesday May 1, 2013Too often, management meetings tilt too far in one area – for example the ‘information dump’. Many meeting audits show senior managers spending up to 80% of meeting time listening to presentations, with little time left for real dialogue and sometimes even less for new learning. A format that could be useful for regular management meetings is LID: L – Learning I – Information D- Dialogue To gain a more balanced agenda for meetings, 1/3 of the meeting should be set aside for each of the above objectives: 1/3 for Learning; 1/3 for information; and 1/3 for dialogue. The discipline of the three equal parts ensures that planning is a broad participatory process, not driven solely by individual agendas. Participatory... -
Mea Culpa!
By Ralph Hood - Wednesday May 1, 2013I don’t want to write this blog, but must. I goofed badly on my last Ground Clutter column in Airport Business magazine. Toward the end of the column I mentioned a situation in Glynn County, Georgia. That’s not the problem. The problem is that I thought—and wrote—that the activity took place at McKinnon Airport on St. Simons Island. Sadly, that was all wrong. The activity discussed took place on Brunswick-Golden Isles Airport on the mainland. Not only that—the major part of the column was about Women in Aviation International, better known as WAI. Somehow that came out as WIA. My head hangs low and I do apologize. Now, on to happier thoughts… One of the things I like most about my job is speaking for aviation... -
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...