ATNS (Air Traffic and Navigation Services) is the sole provider of air traffic, navigation, training and associated services within South Africa and parts of Africa.
Responsible for 10% of the world’s airspace, ATNS manages more than half-a-million arrivals and departures every year. It also trains new controllers each year and extends this training to other air navigation service providers (ANSPs) in the region. A growing company in a highly-dynamic environment, ATNS required a workforce planning platform to plan daily tasks and rosters for its 600 controllers. The solution would also need to handle activities related to the training and testing for trainee controllers.
Quintiq was selected based on its ability to meet air traffic control-specific requirements and the fact that the platform was already being used by the world’s largest ANSPs.The integrated planning solution by Quintiq accommodates all scheduling constraints and rules set by regulatory bodies such as the South African Civil Aviation Authority and the requirements of labor unions.
"We were very impressed by Quintiq and its ability to deliver a solution for our specific needs. ATC requires all systems to be fully compliant with its safety regulations, and Quintiq allows us to provide a safe and reliable service to our customers. It was clear from speaking to references that they are able to help us achieve this as well as improve our cost effective service delivery."
Thabani Mthiyane, CEO, ATNS
Airservices is Australia’s air navigation service provider (ANSP), responsible for managing and monitoring Australian airspace, which covers approximately 11% of the earth’s surface. Of its approximately 4,000 employees, it has almost 1,000 air traffic controllers working at two major centers in Melbourne and Brisbane, four terminal control units and 29 towers at international and regional airports.
With Quintiq's end-to-end ANSP workforce planning solution, Airservices creates plans and rosters for air traffic controllers and support staff in the medium- and short-term. The Quintiq solution is integrated with Airservices’ IT environment and SAP HR & Payroll system.
Since implementing Quintiq, Airservices reports increased visibility of all stages of the rostering process. Management is better equipped to ensure compliance with multiple industrial agreements as well as the regulatory and licensing requirements. Quintiq also delivers an enhanced fatigue risk management system that integrates Airservices’ fatigue rule set and associated processes to anticipate and minimize the impact of fatigue.
"The Quintiq solution provided a level of vision over the entire rostering process that didn't exist before. This has led to increased management capability and management oversight reporting capabilities which have identified areas to reduce costs and seize latent capacity within the network."
Nigel Fitzhardinge, Resource Planning and Rostering Manager, Air Traffic Control Group at Airservices (2013)
The Aviation Security Service (AVSEC) is the official provider of aviation security services in New Zealand. With employees based at eight locations around New Zealand, AVSEC screens domestic and international departing passengers, and provides security at designated areas of airports.
"Quintiq was selected after an extensive RFP process. Our growing understanding, experience and appreciation of Quintiq’s power is allowing us to exploit its capabilities even more. Creating fair and transparent rostering is no longer an issue. The potential keeps growing."
Mark Everitt, General Manager, AVSEC
Brussels Airport, one of the best airports in Western Europe, caters to over 100 airlines daily. In 2014 alone, the Belgian airport managed almost 22 million passengers. Due to a yearly increase in the number of passengers and airlines, the daily assignment of its stands, 54 gates, and 162 check-in desks became a puzzle that was too complex to solve using its old systems.
Brussels Airport now uses Quintiq for its capacity and daily planning. The software enables the airport to optimize the utilization of its resources efficiently to meet the needs of its increasing pool of customers.
"The aviation industry is very dynamic and competitive. Customer satisfaction and cost efficiency need to balance. We can meet these challenges with the Quintiq solution and offer airlines the best possible service and support during check-in and arrival procedures."
Arnaud Feist, CEO, Brussels Airport Company
Copenhagen Airport is the main international airport serving Copenhagen, Denmark. The airport handles over 70 scheduled airlines and serves over 70,000 passengers per day. Over 25.6 million passengers passed through the facility in 2014, making it the busiest airport in the Nordic region. It has a maximum capacity of 83 loadings per hour and room for 108 airplanes.
Unlike other Scandinavian airports, a considerable share of the airport's passengers are international travellers, while domestic passengers number less than 10 percent. The airport’s 2,132 operational staff is managed using Quintiq. In 2014, Copenhagen Airports was named the best airport in Northern Europe. Passengers also rated it as having the best and most friendly security process among 395 airports worldwide.
Operational planning at DFS deals with a wide variety of constraints. To ensure safety, air traffic controllers keep an intricate schedule to coordinate different aircraft movements and short breaks. The controllers have different skills, competencies and certificates. Furthermore, all trainee controllers have to work with an experienced coach.
The planning at DFS also has to comply with regulations and be flexible to deal with changes. DFS uses the Quintiq solution for the daily, monthly and yearly planning of air traffic control staff schedules. The organization expects to be able to deploy staff more efficiently as the new Quintiq system provides DFS with real-time insights into daily schedules and the consequences of necessary adjustments.
"Quintiq shows us in a capacity chart where there is a personnel shortage. During shift planning, planners can view on one display where there will be a shortage of controllers, a day, month or year ahead. The fact that the capacity is shown clearly in one display makes the planning much easier."
Ralf Schlingmann, Project Manager, DFS
Established as a commercial entity in April 2007, Dubai Airports owns and manages the operation of Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Dubai World Central (DWC). DXB is the world’s busiest international airport, serving 90 airlines flying to more than 240 destinations across six continents. DWC, slated to be the region’s airport of the future, launched cargo operations in 2010 and passenger flights in 2013.
The Quintiq solution went live at DXB within 5 months of implementation. It enables automated planning of the airports fixed resources, which include 212 airport stands, 142 gates, 526 check-in counters and 28 baggage belts. It is also able to handle calculations for 40 flights per second and take advantage of information from multiple sources to improve its automation process. With 1,100 flights passing through DXB each day, optimal efficiency is crucial in maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction. With full visibility over resources and demand, planners can adapt resource allocation to fit specific airline preferences and further streamline passenger flow. The result? Increased traffic handling capabilities without sacrificing passenger experience.
“We aim to deliver a world-class experience to the airlines that use our airports and the passengers that they carry. Quintiq will enable us to maximize utilization of our current fixed resources and prepare for future expansions.”
Frank McCrorie, SVP Operations
Finnair flies between Asia, Europe and North America. Its extensive network connects 19 cities in Asia and 7 cities in North America with over 100 destinations in Europe. The airline, a pioneer in sustainable flying, was the first European airline to fly the next-generation, eco-smart Airbus A350 XWB aircraft. It is also the first airline listed in the Leadership Index of the worldwide Carbon Disclosure Project.
The only Nordic carrier with a 4-star Skytrax ranking, Finnair has also won the World Airline Award for Best Airline Northern Europe for the past eight years running. Finnair is a member of oneworld, the alliance of the world's leading airlines committed to providing the highest level of service and convenience to frequent international travelers.
Finnair selected a software by Quintiq to plan its ground operations workforce. This covers rostering for over 1350 employees in the areas of maintenance, customer services, cargo handling and catering.
"Quintiq successfully demonstrated how a single system can manage the planning challenges of different departments."
Jaakko Schildt, COO, Finnair
Fraport AG is a leading group of companies in the international airport business. The company operates Frankfurt Airport, the largest commercial airport in Germany and one of the world's most important air transportation hubs. In addition to offering a full range of airport services, Fraport has a strong presence in airport retailing and real estate development.
Quintiq has helped improve winter service deployment planning at Frankfurt Airport, thus ensuring efficient snow removal and safer travel. Quintiq will continue to help increase the airport’s efficiency in several other key areas.
"Quintiq has made a significant contribution to the efficient planning and coordinating of our winter service. It was possible to model the versatile software according to our needs and quickly implement it. I would recommend Quintiq."
Dr Wolfgang Pelzer, Vice President Application Development ERP, Scheduling and Management Information System
KLM Catering Services Schiphol (KCS) is a leading airline caterer and subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The 1,300-person company serves KLM, KLM Cityhopper, KLM UK, as well as a host of international airlines including Northwest Airlines, Japan Airlines, Iberia, Royal Jordanian, and Cyprus Airways. KCS prepares and delivers 45,000 meals a day to 12 airlines, 350 flights, and 50 different types of aircraft. To keep service levels high, it needed to optimize the speed of its service delivery, maintain consistent delivery performance product quality; increase productivity levels; and control costs.
With the use of Quintiq software, KLM Catering Services improved the utilization of materials, increased productivity and realized better commercial agreements with customers. The project was completed in only six months in collaboration with Quintiq's partner Ab Ovo.
"This is one of the few IT projects which has been implemented on time and within budget. The punctuality of the distribution of the catering products to the aircraft has increased from 98% to 99.5%, which is an important improvement for us. It has exceeded our expectations concerning the functional requirements."
Jacques Blaauw, Managing Director, KLM Catering Services
- Delivery performance improved from 98% to 99.5%.
- A 3% gain in capacity through more efficient use of its vehicles and drivers.
- The system has proven so valuable and reliable that additional activities, such as de-icing aircraft, have also been included.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines serves 144 destinations using a modern fleet of 201 aircraft and employs over 32,500 people around the world. Quintiq was chosen to provide an advanced pilot transition and vacation planning system for KLM.
With Quintiq, KLM was able to reduce the amount of time spent planning and replanning transitions. Quintiq continued to help KLM increase efficiency in a second project: optimizing KLM's workforce planning for pilot management. KLM planners used to take up to one month to develop a three-year plan – now they can create the plan overnight.
"KLM needed a flexible solution that could efficiently manage the important aspects of pilot staffing and keep workforce-related costs minimal. Quintiq's knowledge of our business has impressed us, and we are delighted that the roll-out is complete."
Pieter Wensveen, VP Finance and Crew Planning, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
The operating site of LSG Sky Chefs-Brahim's at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia serves over 50,000 meals to more than 280 aircraft every day. LSG-Sky Chefs-Brahim's caters for multiple aircraft types requiring different service carts, equipment, and numerous menu options. Dynamic flight schedules and frequent last-minute aircraft, gate and passenger changes create a highly complex operational environment.
After searching for a flexible planning system that could adapt to its complex rules and dynamic mode of operations, LSG-Sky Chefs-Brahim's selected Quintiq to provide a supply chain planning and optimization solution to optimize its ramp operations, production, and equipment. Within six months, LSG Sky Chefs-Brahim's achieved its goals of improving operational efficiency and capacity utilization, with a full return on investment achieved through significant reductions in vehicles and labor costs.
"We have improved our ability to respond to flight delays and, therefore, our customer service. Our planning process is much better and we can predict where manpower issues might occur, which in return reduces overtime."
Pieter Harting, General Manager LSG Sky Chefs-Brahim's
Lufthansa Cargo ranks among the world’s leading air freight carriers. In the 2017 business year, the airline transported around 1.6 million tons of freight and mail and sold 8.9 billion revenue ton-kilometers. The company currently employs about 4,500 people worldwide. The cargo carrier serves around 300 destinations in more than 100 countries with its own fleet of freighters, the belly capacities of passenger aircraft operated by Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings, and an extensive road feeder service network. The bulk of the cargo business is routed through Frankfurt Airport. Lufthansa Cargo is a wholly owned Lufthansa subsidiary of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
Lufthansa Cargo selected Quintiq to improve Lufthansa Cargo's production planning at two of its most relevant hubs in Frankfurt and Munich. Lufthansa Cargo can look forward to improved business performance with Quintiq as the solution is set to maximize capacity of workstations and improve the flow of freight between inbound and outbound processes.
"We at Lufthansa Cargo are constantly looking for new ways to simplify operations and increase efficiency. Digitization is key. It adds to our competitive advantage and gives value to our partners. Our search for digitized processes led us to Quintiq. We are confident that Quintiq will enable us to offer better service to our customers and strengthen our market position."
Sören Stark, Chief Operating Officer, Lufthansa Cargo
Switzerland’s air navigation service provider (ANSP) skyguide has 1,400 employees. This includes over 540 civil and military air traffic controllers; 300 engineers, technicians, and IT experts for development and maintenance; aeronautical data operators, admin staff, and many other roles.
ANSP skyguide optimizes the planning of the rosters and tasks of nearly 800 air traffic control officers (ATCOs) and other staff using the Quintiq planning and optimization software. The system is called the Business Integrated Optimization of MANpower (BIOMAN) project and its goal is to enable skyguide to achieve greater planning efficiency and transparency, thus improving service delivery performance and reducing costs.
Quintiq was chosen for its ability to demonstrate that its solution will enable skyguide to achieve enhanced operational efficiency and service quality as well as lower costs. Additionally, Quintiq proved that its flexible system could adapt to the variety of requirements at skyguide’s different locations and integrate with skyguide’s existing planning systems.
“A lot of time is gained by the application’s possibility to create reports on absolutely anything, including calculated values, which allow us to very quickly check the total per week, month or year of any planning counter, to obtain statistics on vast amounts of data, and to track eventual errors.”
Sandrine Fisher, Skyguide planning expert and staff planner for Geneva operational staff
Transavia is a Dutch low cost airline that flies about seven million passengers to more than 90 different destinations annually. Its fleet of 35 aircraft must be utilised as efficiently as possible, thus reliable and accurate maintenance planning is regarded as one of the company’s most important goals.
Since Transavia began planning the maintenance of its aircraft with Quintiq, it has improved operational planning efficiency and achieved higher interval utilisation, which is the time between two repetitive maintenance tasks. Improving interval utilisation has had two effects: it has cut costs due to the reduction in the number of aircraft maintenance technicians needed, and allowed more efficient use of the airplane parts.
"The Quintiq planning solution enables us to optimally synchronise our maintenance planning to the flight programme, thus improving our interval usage by more than 10%."
Art van der Hoeven, Project Manager, Transavia
Transavia aimed for an interval usage improvement of 5%, for an ROI within one year. After using the solution for just two months, Transavia improved interval usage by 6%; after one year, the improvement grew to more than 10%.
Since its founding in 1984, Virgin Atlantic has become the UK’s second largest long-haul carrier in terms of passenger volume. In 2015, it carried over 5.9 million passengers to 33 destinations worldwide, including North America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Far East. 70% of its flights now serve the transatlantic market.
To offer the best passenger experience while keeping staff happy and delivering cost efficiencies, Virgin Atlantic selected Quintiq to optimize ground staff planning at London Heathrow Airport Terminal 3, the hub of the airline’s operations.
Before, Virgin Atlantic planned its terminal staff using a standalone system and spreadsheets—a method that was isolated and cumbersome. With the Quintiq integrated planning platform, the airline now adopts an innovative demand-driven approach to staff planning – one that takes its lead from the flight schedule to ensure that enough check-in desks are opened so that passengers are served promptly, but not too many that employees are idle and costs rise.
The Quintiq solution will also help Virgin Atlantic cut down on overtime costs by predicting shortages days in advance, and take into account employee preferences such as preferred working hours via an interactive employee portal.
"The desire to provide every Virgin Atlantic passenger with a fantastic experience drives everything we do. This is no different. With Quintiq supporting us to improve operational efficiencies, deliver cost savings, and keep our staff happy, we'll be able to focus on innovating and creating new opportunities to serve our passengers even better."
John Bell, General Manager UK Airports, Virgin Atlantic Airways
