Writes Richard Moody, EVP-EMEA
Passenger Terminal Expo (PTE) is the place where everyone from our industry gathers annually to meet, share ideas, find out what’s new and generally catch-up face to face in a world where online meetings are now the norm.
This year PTE was held at the RAI in Amsterdam over 3 days from the 14th- 16th March. It was the biggest PTE event ever with over 250 exhibitors and 10,000+ visitors from 130 countries. Almost everything you need to build and run an airport was on display, from airport design, furniture, baggage systems and of course technology.
The ServiceTec Team representing our company were Carl Shallcross, Laura Becker, Sander Opdam, Ton Oosterwijk, and myself.
The Heathrow Team, led by Kevin Walsh, have been extremely busy over the past 6 months installing Collins MUSE common use passenger processing system into BA’s home terminal T5. In what must be one of the most challenging (and unusual!) installations the team has installed MUSE alongside the BA dedicated equipment to give BA added resilience and flexibility over the peak periods. Congratulations and kudos to the entire LHR team with a challenging project that BA are delighted with.
It’s not only the passengers that have been experiencing delays, ServiceTec is also seeing many of the new projects that we are involved with such as new Next Generation Kiosks (NGK), new CUSS kiosks, Windows 10 upgrades (yes we are still doing them!) and the European Entry Exit (EES) deployments being delayed. It’s frustrating for the Team to have worked hard to have won this new business only for it to be delayed, but as the saying goes, all good things are worth waiting for and worth the effort.
On 9th May David Ison and Lynne Harrison visited Schiphol Airport representing ServiceTec’s Board of Directors to meet with the ServiceTec AMS Team and our customers Idemia, SITA and Vision-Box. The day was rounded off with a boat trip on the canals of Amsterdam and despite the rain I think it’s fair to say that we had a fun and enjoyable evening together!
Our Team in Oslo, Norway were asked to visit Svalbard Airport (LYR) to train the local technicians and perform Windows upgrades and installations at the beginning of June. Aurel Hategan volunteered for what must qualify as being one of the most remote locations ServiceTec has visited. It’s one of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas famous for its frozen tundra and polar bears. As you can see from the map it’s a long way from anywhere!
It’s great to see the airports are so busy again after such a difficult time for everyone with the pandemic and then the cost of living crisis. We’ve seen passenger numbers getting very close to pre-pandemic levels and the number of incidents we are receiving exceeds the 2019 levels so far this year.
Everyone’s been busy, and none more so than the ER Team (Lorraine and Heidi) and the Site Managers & Team Leaders who have been very busy recruiting new team members. If you know anyone who would be interested in a job at ServiceTec don’t forget that we have a referral scheme and you will be paid £750 / €870 for referring someone who completes their introduction period.
Well done and thank you to everyone for your hard work and professionalism that ensures that we continue to keep our customers delighted with the services that we provide.
Richard Moody
EVP – EMEA
