Lufthansa and Fraport have received the renowned German Logistics award for their joint project to provide integrated passenger and baggage logistics at the Frankfurt aviation hub. Since it was first awarded in 1984 the German Logistics Award has become one of the most renowned and important logistics awards. This year’s award ceremony took place during the logistics congress held in Berlin.
The 2008 award was given to Lufthansa and Fraport for their logistics concept of integrated passenger and baggage logistics at the Frankfurt aviation hub. The aim of the project was to develop a closely interlinked logistics chain to enable the fast transfer of passengers and their baggage to their connecting flights, even under difficult and constantly changing circumstances. General reliability, punctuality and comfort were also made a target for significant improvement.
Lufthansa has undertaken the ground handling of its own aircraft for over 50 years. Fraport is the world’s largest ground handling organisation at a hub where it has more than 18,000 employees. More than 6,000 of those are responsible for the seamless dispatching of aircraft and the timely transfer of passengers and their baggage. The logistic alliance between both companies is supported by the same number of specialised Lufthansa employees.
Between 2003 and 2007 this collaboration intensified in the areas of passenger and baggage logistics in order to be able to cope with the multiple challenges of Frankfurt Airport hub. The first step was to increase the exchange of data, which was followed by linking staff and IT systems of the two companies. In this way, the activities of Lufthansa and Fraport led to a joint master plan for their passenger and baggage logistics.
INFORM is proud to be part of this unique project, providing its IT systems for passenger transport to and from the aircraft, loading and unloading, baggage transport, cleaning, catering and passenger services at the gate.
In 1991, the first real-time deployment system developed by INFORM was implemented by Frankfurt Airport in its passenger services department, and subsequently in its baggage and cargo transport, its towing divisions, and for administrators in the operations management centres. INFORM’s GroundStar system is also used in the allocation of ASG’s cleaning staff. ASG is a subsidiary of the mother company Fraport.
Lufthansa has been supported by INFORM’s GroundStar system for seven years, to handle the planning and real-time allocation of passenger services staff. The LSG Sky Chefs’ catering staff are allocated using GS RealTime by means of a WAP application on GSM/GPRS mobile phones for fast and efficient data exchange.