Belgian Ground Services and Sky Assist collaboration is a long story, started in 1995 with the first application release of a product then called Estetic.
The basic idea was (and is still today) on one hand to simplify and automate the baggage handling processes in order to gain time and therefore increase the staff productivity, and on the other hand to increase the service towards the passengers and the handled airlines.
These two elements allow us to optimise the resources internally, and to have a service differentiator towards the handling competitors.
BGS is today using the two products offered by Sky Assist in the baggage handling area:
BagAssist
The previous client-server version of Estetic has been upgraded in April 2003, and is successfully used by the Lost & Founds agents. The graphical interface is so simple, that it does not require the agents to have an advanced knowledge of WorldTracer.
The staff productivity has increased up to 20% for the incident declaration modules (AHL, DPR and OHD), for the baggage reception, rushing by air and by surface by increasing the data quality and automating the processes.
The agents now work in a friendly environment, by serving the passenger in a professional and structured way.
The IVR module enabled us to increase the staff productivity up to 40% by filtering the “unnecessary” calls, decreasing the passenger waiting time from more than 30 minutes down to few seconds, the average call duration down from 3 minutes to 40 seconds and the average lost calls to around 5%.
BagAutorush
BagAutorush is a fully automated tool for loading or rushing the baggage that have been mis-directed or rejected during the airport sorting process. No decision is required by the agent. It enabled us to re-allocate 2 highly trained people from Lost & Founds to higher level tasks, and one employee having no WorldTracer knowledge is now handling the baggage. A 5 minutes training is sufficient to have a new staff to be able to work with the application. Without this tool, most of these bags would be treated by the Lost & Founds department, and therefore more tracing files would be created.
Finally the highly advanced technology will allow us in a near future to take advantage of mobile solution, by running the two applications directly in advanced scanners, without the need of a costly technology upgrade. This opens lots of very promising options for future expansion.