The new super-jumbo jet A380 made its first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney on 25 October. Much has already been written about this flight – the luxury of the “beyond first class” suites, the comfortable business class, and the “economy is economy” section. But little was written about the preparation needed to get the flight ready to go.
UFIS Airport Solutions is proud that their UFIS® software suite played an integral role in the preparation for the departure of the A380 from Singapore. UFIS is used by Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SATS), the main ground handler at Changi International Airport, to make sure the right personnel was in place for check-in, baggage loading, fueling, and servicing the plane. The Civil Aviation Authorities of Singapore (CAAS) used the location management features of UFIS to make sure that the correct number of check-in counters were assigned to the flight and a parking stand big enough to handle the super-sized A380 was reserved and available for this historic flight. UFIS Status Manager module, providing a graphical overview of the statuses, was used to make sure each service was completed in time for an on-time departure.
“SATS has depended on UFIS products for a number of years now,” said Anders Sagadin, president and CEO of UFIS Airport Solutions, “and they continued to do so for this first A380 flight. This is a great illustration of UFISs reliability, dependability, and flexibility.”
The UFIS software was optimized two years ago to handle the A380. For example, the gate and position planning and management system can handle dual-use positions and sub-positions. Many airports handling the A380 will have dedicated positions for this aircraft type. However, there will not always be an A380 at that position all the time. Using a matrix function and rules which define which aircraft can be adjacent to each other and which cannot, a position reserved for an A380 can be used by one or more aircraft at the sub-positions when not in use by an A380.