Time to say good bye

As some of you may know, I will change jobs after working a decade in the software and consulting business for airports. I will be managing Compendio Bildungsmedien AG, a Swiss textbook publishing company. We design and develop textbooks, course and training materials in printed and digital form.

It has been a pleasure working with each and every one of you over the years and I thank you for being co-workers of the highest caliber and for helping foster my personal and professional growth along the way.

The years I spent in the airport industry were challenging, interesting and enjoyable and my decision to leave was a difficult one to make; however, I have been presented with an excellent opportunity and I would be remiss if I did not pursue it.

Throughout the years I was always proud of the work we accomplished and I will most certainly miss the opportunity to work with each of you. I wish you all the very best in your future endeavors; both personal and professional, and I thank you again for your positive contributions to my professional career, and making my time spent both fulfilling and enjoyable.

Getting the best out of your operations control - part 1

"You can’t motivate people, but you can create an environment that encourages them to be motivated." In his article Getting the Best Out of People in the Workplace, Les Landes covers a number of key areas to achieve that goal. What applies to the workplace in general, surely applies to operations control.

This first post about 'getting the best out of your operations control' addresses the operations control processes. Les Landers points out that "if people don’t have clearly defined processes for the tasks that they’re expected to do, they are likely to struggle with how to carry out the tasks." What follows is how a high-level model for an integrated operations control. Such a model should apply for each process being monitored and steered, whether the airport can manage the process directly or not.

Let us take an example of the passenger flow, specifically passenger screening. Flight schedule, resource allocation, capacity information and standard processing times can be used to predict expected passengers and expected waiting times. In the best case, booked passenger numbers are available from the airlines (split by transfer and local passengers). During the day, planned information is automatically and dynamically updated with status changes, such as cancellations, delays, passenger number changes, gate changes, etc. which make the predictions more valuable. Automatically triggered warnings alert coordinators in operations control about potential bottlenecks (e.g. expected waiting times even with all lines open). Pro-active actions can be taken like delaying gate information to passengers and changing the gate. An actual waiting time at a passenger screening, automatically detected or manually reported, will trigger an alert and associated action. Such an action can be, obviously, to open more lines. Another action, maybe not that obvious, would be to first provide a list of flights which are currently being processed at security screening and which maybe become critical to complete boarding in time. Then, passengers of that flight can be directly addressed at the screening point. The analysis and reporting does not only cater for statistics. It should also analyse how well the prediction was, in order to adjust the algorithm. And provide feedback to planning and scheduling.

Now apply the same approach and technology to other processes.

Let's see what will be in part 2 of the series on how to get the best out your operations control. Maybe about Constructive Accountability?

Decisions should be based on efficiency and not on whether there is budget

Budgeting is at the heart of how nearly all large corporations are managed today. Therefore managers cannot be blamed if they don't care about costs as long as they stay within budget. At the same time we want to nurture entrepreneurial spirit and empower managers at all levels. Therefore, in addition to the traditional budgeting process, we may have to establish a more encompassing performance management addressing efficiency and productivity goals.

Let us look at two real live examples from airport operation of an airport with expected passenger and cargo growth:

Passenger Bus Operation: Based on expected passenger growth, there is budget to employ more staff this year.

Cargo Operation: The head of cargo operation has budget to expand the warehouse this year.

Both investments will not be ideal if the growth does actually not happen and if the growth only occurs during peak times.

Suppose we gave them efficiency targets, expressed as cost per Workload Unit (WLU). For the passenger bus operation the WLU would be number of passengers transported. For cargo operation it would be tons of cargo processed.

Now instead of following just the budget, the manager responsible for passenger buses manages his WLU cost by contracting drivers for buses from a transport company to cover the highest traffic peaks of the day. And the head of cargo operation defers an expansion because this would increase his WLU cost. He instead rents storage space in an external building until he has sufficient volume to keep his WLU costs on an acceptable level.

This approach provides growth-independent performance indicators, a simple and direct cost control and empowers managers to make entrepreneurial decisions. There may be some challenges to implement this model. Firstly, such a paradigm shift from budget control to efficiency targets creates resistance. On all levels. Secondly, the budgeting process will be more demanding because we will have a budget and WLU cost targets. Thirdly, it is important, but not easy, to choose correct WLU because they need to be relevant for the bottom line.

This model is not about getting rid of budgeting but about getting rid of the budgeting mindset. The potential benefits are extensive:

• It is a scalable approach to be used by all hierarchical levels. The higher the level, the more consolidated the view.
• Managers will start to manage differently. Before they make a decision with cost relevance, they will carefully assess the impact on your WLU costs, something they would not necessarily do with a budget.
• You breed entrepreneurs and it actually leads to a culture change.
• Managers will learn a lot about the composition of the costs of their work load units, because whenever the costs go up or down they have to find out the reason.
• Then, when they know where the big levers are, they’ll start to pull them to get a better correlation between production and costs.
• For the controllers it is much more simple to do their job. (if you ask a controller today, he will tell you that his function is, to make sure that the managers act like entrepreneurs).
• This is a self-regulating system: whatever happens to the production, the responsible manager will act immediately to stay within his work load unit cost targets.

There is an ACI Guide to Airport Performance available which contains a useful set of performance measures across a number of categories. It does not provide, however, guidance on the steps airports have to take to develop, implement, and refine their performance management systems.

What happened at Rome Fiumicino (FCO)?

In June this year I wrote a controversial article in my blog about whether ECTRL A-CDM improves departure punctuality or not. Using Association of European Airlines (AEA) punctuality reports I analyzed the data of A-CDM airports.

Recently I was asked about my article and I quickly updated some airports. I had to double check FCO, because since the local A-CDM go-live, the departure punctuality of the AEA carriers has dropped remarkably (see chart).

 
Does anybody know what is going wrong at FCO?

Reduce start-up delays (IR 89)

Delayed flights which take away slots of punctual flights have a snowball effect. The other flights will be delayed with an IR 89 which stands - in such a case - for a start-up delay.

What if the causer would take the full effect which means that delayed flights can only depart when there is a slot available? As soon as delayed flights have their doors closed they would be put on standby for immediate departure in case of a free departure slot.

Despite the resistance by unpunctual carriers and maybe your hub carrier, your potential is significant.

Want to know your potential to reduce (start-up) delays with this approach? Send us your data and we will tell you.

Does EUROCONTROL A-CDM improve departure punctuality?

For those who prefer executive summaries, just scroll down.

Don't get me wrong. I am a full supporter of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) whether it is driven by EUROCONTROL, FAA, SESAR, an airport operator, a local ATC, or even a software vendor. However, CDM, as I understand it, goes beyond data exchange. It is the participation of the airport community when it comes to decisions of the airport about the development of future infrastructure and in daily operation.

According to publicly available information improvements by ECTRL A-CDM include reduced taxi times, fuel savings, better slot adherence, less late gate changes, less network delays, and higher arrival and departure punctuality. The departure punctuality might be the most important element in this list for an airport and its stakeholders. Why? Because airports, airlines and service providers need to allocate reserve capacities for strategic (already planned buffers) and tactical (operational day) delays.

In my recent post about airport punctuality myths I mentioned that I conducted some research about the effect of ECTRL A-CDM on departure punctuality. There were two problems with this. First, as already pointed out in the other post, departure punctuality measured in percent is an imperfect metric. And I am still going to use that impudently. Secondly, there is not much data publicly available.

For the following analysis I used data from the Association of European Airlines (AEA) who themselves receive data from airlines and Central Office of Delay Analysis (CODA). Unfortunately, the data only covers AEA airlines and it does not include passenger figures. But for the sake of this analysis I assume that AEA airlines traffic is the most critical (in terms of turnaround process for instance).

What did I analyze? I investigated all A-CDM Airports according to the DPI implementation status and split them in two categories: (1) Fully compliant (DPI operational) and  (2) Locally implemented. I was expecting the following effect from an A-CDM implementation: (a) sustainable improvement of punctuality after implementation, (b) solid punctuality during adverse conditions (i.e. last winter), (c) continuous improvement, i.e. actual year at least as good as last year with more traffic or better than last year with less traffic and (d) a positive punctuality trend in the last 12 months.

Executive summary:

The following table lists the investigated airports and the findings. Example charts of individual airports can be found below.

In a nutshell:

• Being an 'A-CDM' airport does not mean that your departure punctuality improves sustainably.
• Even though the number of flights decreased at most European airports, punctuality has not improved.
• Most A-CDM airports spiral downwards in adverse conditions, i.e. winter operations.

And one more thing which I noted during the analysis:

• It is a crying shame that we work in an industry which publishes departure times and at most European airports only about every second flight actually departs on time.

Here are some example charts of the investigated airports. If you would like more of them, just let me know - jweder (at) neuropie.com.

 

Three Myths About Airport Punctuality

While Ryanair is boasting to be the most punctual European airline, Oman Air celebrates one day of 100% on-time performance on April 26 this year. Unfortunately there is no public data that proves any of these claims.

What about airports? In April 2011 London Heathrow published a record 94% departure punctuality.  Now they are Britain's worst airport according to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

I think it's time to wade through some of the myths and confusion surrounding airport punctuality.

1. Punctuality is an internationally standardized metric.

Punctuality targets are usually defined in terms of 15-minute punctuality, i.e. a flight is counted as departing on-time if the plane goes off-blocks within 15 minutes of the scheduled time of  departure. But what is "15 minutes"? Is it more than 14'59" or more than 15' or even more than 15'59"? Now some airports and airlines may disagree on this but even ACI, IATA and AEA don't. If they do, then it will probably be 15'59", stealing another minute from the passenger, airline and airport capacity just to look better.

And, have you compared off-blocks times of airport and airline? Some airports check and validate differences within +/- 1 minute, most don't. Result: airport and airline report different punctuality figures.

2. Punctuality is a great metric to benchmark.

In previous posts I was highlighting some flaws of punctuality as a metric.

• Cancellations of delayed flights improve punctuality
• Indicator ignores size of aircraft and number of passengers affected
• No assessment about the financial loss possible
• Mix of performance which can be influenced with exogenous factors
• Difficult to determine improvement measures

Why is it still used, even as internal target? Because it is easy to understand and when it is bad, it can be easily attributed to exogenous factors.

3. Eurocontrol A-CDM improves airport punctuality.

There is no evidence that ECTRL A-CDM improves punctuality. Yes, it might reduce taxi times but with a negative effect on departure punctuality. With the lack of evidence I did some research myself and present the findings in my next post.

I know it is easy to lament. What do I have to offer instead? An approach and metrics to actually address the issue together with other stakeholders. Because the airport can have that 360° view and not just the silo view by every other stakeholder.

Interesting interview

Pedro Garcia who writes a blog (http://www.aeriaa.com/) has asked me a number of interesting questions. Please see the answers in his latest post: http://www.aeriaa.com/2013/04/07/airtalk-with-jurgen-weder-neuropies-ceo/

One year after go-live of their Airport Management Center, Moscow Sheremetyevo is the best ACI ASQ airport in Europe. Coincidence?

Lasting success is not a result of coincidence. It's the result of focused hard work.

When Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport established their Airport Management Center by the end of 2011 they endeavoured to achieve these goals:

• To consolidate the coordination, monitoring and control of the different airport-wide spread operations control centres
• To effectively manage the airport across organisations
• To significantly shorten reaction times on irregularities
• To improve the capacity and act with standard operating procedures at hand to provide excellent customer service from end-to-end

We are very glad to have been part of the project with our technology and business expertise.

One year after their go-live, ACI names Sheremetyevo the best European airport in service quality. The Airport Service Quality (ASQ) is one of the most prestigious research programs on Airport Service Quality involving 250 airports in 50 countries.

Is this coincidence? Maybe they collaborate better than before, internally and externally. Maybe they act more like a business and more performance oriented. Maybe there are less friction-losses between processes and organisations.

In the end, what counts, are the results. And this award is outstanding because it comes from the end-customer, the passenger.

The 7 habits of highly effective punctuality management

As soon as an airport or an airline has a punctuality record month, they publish press releases, they celebrate. But how sustainable is such a short-time success? If you check their performance from then on, you may find them falling back to the levels before.

Can on-time performance be actively managed? If you think it can't be managed or can only be resolved by others, the following 7 habits may present a different perspective. If you already manage punctuality, you can assess where you are in your quest.

Habit	Characteristics
Accountability	There is a sufficient number of delay codes to differentiate delay causer Each delay code (with sub-code) has an owner or responsible organization The delay code assignment process is clear and in place (assign, accept, reject, handling of disputes, final call). Secondary delays are allocated to the original causer Delay cost is calculated and assigned to the causer
Transparency	Delay code assignment and on-time performance of every organization is transparent to everybody. Data quality is high Share performance with other airports
Standardization	Only one definition of delay codes and delays across the airport based on IATA standard, incorporated in the Airport Handling Manual (AHM) Any non-conformance e.g. different reporting from an airline to its head office will be brought forward to the Governance Forum
Governance and Benchmarking	Multi-stakeholder Airport Operations Control Center to manage the daily operational on-time performance and escalations Has a Punctuality Manager Punctuality Board, chaired by the Airport's Punctuality Manager, with delegates from handling agents and airlines proposes and tracks actions Punctuality targets are defined and broken down to each stakeholder Maybe an award/penalty pool for on-time performance Benchmark against other airports
System Integration	Delay codes and delays are captured or integrated into one 'global' system. That system should also allow to automatically track issues of a flight which could have caused the delay in case of disputes.
Communication/PR	Constant, effective communication among all stakeholders Maybe an award for the best punctuality improvement program
Empowerment	Agree on challenging yet achievable goals but leave it up to the partners to implement sustainable improvement Provide sufficient resources for punctuality management and improvement programs

The love-hate relationship between airport operator and hub carrier

There are mutual dependencies between an airport operator and a hub carrier. Both companies contribute to the overall product "Airport". In many subject areas, the interests of both parties are therefore identical. Different interests can occur in subject areas in which the airport operator represents the interests of all airport users and they do not meet the interests of the hub carrier, or where the airport is representing their own interests.

Different Roles

The airport operator is holding the concession to operate the airport and is therefore responsible that the infrastructure is used efficiently and suffices to accommodate future growth. The planning and the day-by-day management of infrastructural resources should therefore stay where the financial responsibility is located i.e. with the airport. Airports leaving the management of infrastructure to airlines will be faced with inefficiency and continuous demands for more and better infrastructure which produces higher costs (for example inefficient resource allocation and lack of control of slot adherence). A hub carrier is planning their network and schedule in order to satisfy the demand of passenger and cargo transportation and in doing so, to make as much profit as possible. For an airline, the planning of resources like aircraft and crews is their core competence and should not be handed over to an airport as the financial responsibility to shareholders lies exclusively with the airline.

Different Businesses

There is a big difference of the cost structure between airline and airport. An airline has 70-80% variable costs. In case of an economic downturn it will reduce costs by eliminating flights with a low profitability and can so reduce their main expenditures substantially and quickly. The planning horizon is usually 2 flight seasons except for fleet planning which is covering 2 to maximum 5 years. An airport has 70-80% fixed costs. The main cost factor, infrastructure, cannot be reduced quickly if revenues drop because airlines cut their flight schedule. Airports therefore tend to build functional infrastructure which is cheap to build and maintain. The planning horizon (master plan) covers often the best part of the concession period and can be as long as 30 to 50 years.

Conflict 

Though the relationship between hub carrier and the airport is a symbiotic one there are conflicts in the one between hub carrier and hub airport. From the airport’s view, the hub carrier presents with its big market share a cluster risk and a danger to its independence. To attract other airlines is the sensible thing to do in order to mitigate those risks, at least from an economical and entrepreneurial point of view. This is a balancing act though, because the airport has to be careful not to cause a too competitive environment in order to prevent an adverse effect on its main customer. The hub carrier in turn expects from the airport a better and more exclusive infrastructure than the other airlines to get a competitive advantage. All this of course offered at costs which should lie considerably below the prices paid by competitors for less suitable facilities. And there should be no competition, even to destinations presently not served by the hub carrier.

Conclusion

This conflict exists at most of the hubs of this world. It should be addressed by airport and hub carrier in order to find a cooperation model without intruding into the partners business or responsibility. It should not be lopsided but serving both partners even if it means compromising. It should allow both, airport and hub carrier to grow and to conduct its business within limits to be agreed on in a memorandum of understanding, without interference of the partner.

The problem with early flight arrivals

Some of the most common of the aggravations affecting air travelers is a flight delay or a cancellation. An early arrival of the inbound aircraft of their respective outbound flight is good news. It increases their chances of a timely departure. Not so good for the arriving passengers though if the ground staff is not ready yet. Which happened quite often to me - no one there to operate the air bridge or no one there to open the door from the air bridge to the terminal.

Not so good news for the airport as well, because early arrivals can be a disruption just like late arrivals.

Usually, airports plan for 15 minute buffers in their resource allocation (stands, gates). Fifteen minutes before Scheduled Time of Arrival (STA) and after. Sure, an early arrival helps when the airport endeavors short turnaround times. But if a flight arrives earlier then the planned buffer, it means that the airport has to cater for costly reserve capacities. Furthermore, there will be many changes affecting the operation.

What can an airport do against this? They can demand slot adherence, or the airline(s) will loose that slot and/or tell them that there will be no stand available. In a collaborative manner, of course, the airport will first approach them, raise the problem and discuss joint measures.

Why it is counterproductive to let passengers know how long waiting lines are

People say that knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power. Suppose you knew the winning numbers for the lottery?  What would you do? You would run to the store and mark those numbers on the play card. And you would win.

Same for airports? Suppose you knew the waiting time at checkpoints like at Dulles International Airport. What would you do? Experience shows that when there is not much waiting time passengers tend to dwell and get to the checkpoint later. Which may create a problem later. It also shows that when there is long waiting time passengers tend to go to the checkpoint immediately. Which increases the problem now.

I think that airports should endeavor to steer the passengers indirectly based on the information they have. They may wait to announce gates until they see that there is capacity at checkpoints. They may change gates of arriving flights or bring passengers to other arrival halls.

Airport business is full of decisions and judgements and guesses, and also looking outside of the box.

The need for airport performance indicators

All businesses, whether in the public or private sector, need to measure and monitor their performance. The use of performance measures in the airport industry is particularly important because of the specific characteristics of airports. In a perfectly competitive environment, market forces will ensure that optimal performance can be equated with profitability. However, the conditions under which airports operate, are far from competitive. Regulatory, geographical, economic, social, and political constraints all hinder direct competition between airports. At the same time, the extent to which airports can attract other airports' traffic with different price levels or service levels is also very limited. Most airports therefore enjoy a quasi-monopolistic position and may abuse such a position by extracting high revenues from their customers. Profit may not equate with efficiency and productivity. Moreover, overall profitability is totally inadequate as a measure of the economic performance of discrete activity areas within an airport.

However, many airports still assess their performance by solely measuring profit or traffic growth. This in spite of a growing awareness by airport management of the financial and commercial implications of operating an airport.

Example: Sydney Airport Performance

 

Only a few airports have developed a systematic approach towards measuring performance. In general, there is no accepted industry practice for measuring airport performance. Additional indicators measuring the inputs and outputs in both physical and financial terms are essential.

In the coming weeks, we will explore more about how to measure an airport operation's efficiency and productivity. We will discuss performance indicators which serve as a management tool for the airports themselves. They are used to analyze and monitor past and present performance. Most importantly, they should make sure that management understands the financial mechanism of airport operation.

The role of an Airport Management Center for efficient operations

It is certainly a challenge to improve or at least maintain on-time performance and service quality with a continuously growing number of passengers. Airports are establishing structures, processes and technologies to address the challenges of today and the future. Eurocontrol's initiative of Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) aims at improving the airside process with a focus on the aircraft turnaround. What about the rest? What about structures, processes and technologies to address this area of business together with the airport partners?

Coordination on ground is a quite complex matter. There are multiple players with their own coordination centers providing disparate services. You will find many shared processes and responsibilities though. Service levels are not aligned and processes have many interdependencies. Even though there are infrastructure limitations, airport and ATC slots, winter operation or specific passenger behavior, you will find rarely a 'superordinated' coordination.

An Airport Management Center (AMC) can address this challenge. The airport operator manages the operation together with their partners. Supported by the top managers of all partners the common goal is operational excellence. The key services are coordinated in one room, moderated by the airport, based on a free flow of information. This will not only require a room but also efficient IT systems.

However, are you ready for this change of culture? The airport's top management must be convinced that this change is necessary in order to achieve its goal. Unfortunately, most of the time such a re-thinking is triggered only after a bigger or smaller crisis. The starting point is a paradigm shift from administrating to orchestrating the operation. There the airport operator takes a leading role in managing the airport operation. The next challenge will be internal shifts of power and responsibilities. This is usually where such projects fail because it may include organizational changes.

After having overcome the mostly internal hurdles, the airport will have to take the initiative and convince their partners to join the center, build the room, implement new IT systems, and to provide know-how transfer and training.

What are the main functions of an AMC? It is an information center which collects and disseminates information. It facilitates communication because peers are sitting in the same room and can talk freely and efficiently. Decisions are made in a collaborative and coordinated manner. Of course, it also creates goodwill amongst the airport partners and a community feeling. Eventually, efficient teamwork, control over operational activities and a leading role by the airport will be achieved.

American queuing 76% better than individual queues

Once the flow of passengers passes a control point (security, passport) which has more than one control position, American Queuing system has clear psychological and physical benefits against individual queues.

• Passengers is neither stressed by long lines even before he lines up nor does it give the impression of chaos.
• They will not ask themselves whether they are in the wrong line, because the waiting time is the same for all passengers.
• The queue will not block because of a "difficult case" which takes longer than usual.
• The waiting time in the queue is not dependent on the performance of a single counter but depends on the number of occupied counters and on the average processing times.
• The movement of the waiting passenger accelerates according to the number of available counters, i.e. the waiting time seems shorter for the waiting passengers (the queue moves constantly forward).
• Individual queues need 76% more waiting area. With large number of passengers, passenger circulation is very limited or even prevented.

Sure there are disadvantage of the American Queuing system: It must be actively managed by 1-2 people in order to ensure optimal throughput at the checkpoint. And, when there are empty queues the posts and tapes interfere with the aesthetics of the waiting area.

Is your Airport Duty Manager a leader?

More and more I become aware of the importance of the Airport Duty Managers, in particular regarding Collaborative Decision Making (CDM). 

As the designated moderator of the CDM process he/she must be perceived and accepted by his peers as the informal leader. To achieve this status, however, behavior and especially communication of the Duty Manager are essential, as demeanor, appearance and communication triggers and determines human interaction. This interaction in turn is the key for collaboration. In addition to distinct management and leadership abilities, Duty Managers should have excellent communication skills.

I hope that none of the following issues do apply to your Airport Duty Manager(s):

• Work almost exclusively re-actively. They rarely manage (act proactively) and are therefore not perceived as leader.
• Do not prepare sufficiently for possible irregularity scenarios but leave managing (preparation for possible scenarios) to the “responsible functions” without being part of it.
• Lack additional area of responsibility they have to manage (improvements)
• Do not communicate on a structured, regular basis with their partners inside and outside of the organization.
• Are not perceived as leaders or moderators but as mere supervisors controlling the partners.
• Neither possess the necessary skills nor the authority to lead a group of people not subordinated to them.

Airport governance model to establish leading position of airport company

How is your dialogue with your airport partners, in particular your hub carrier (or biggest carriers)?

In order to achieve and maintain a leading position it is important for the airport company to institutionalize contacts with partners on all management levels. Despite data sharing and the processes around it, a successful Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) model should also address performance management and a solid governance model.

Institutionalized meetings do not only ensure the dialogue between the airport and their partners but also between the partners. This dialogue has to be regular and structured. Separate, additional meetings with the hub carrier (or major carriers) have to be added to emphasize their importance and to allow the discussion of matters bilaterally.

Policies on the different subjects have to be formulated which will serve as guidelines in the CDM meetings. Deviations from these policies have to be authorized by top management. Every meeting between airport  with partners requires an internal preparatory meeting where every agenda point is discussed and possible compromises are reviewed.

This may all sound too logical and straightforward to you but rest assured, there are not many airports out there practicing these fundamentals.

Collaboration and performance at South African airports

Last week I was in South Africa visiting the Airport Management Centres at the airports Johannesburg and Cape Town. It has been more than two years since my last visit and I was wondering what their maturity level would be. It was simply great to see them continuously working on improving airport performance and collaboration. Just highlighting two areas: stakeholders and performance.

Stakeholders: They have representatives from the airport, from the major airlines, from all three ground handlers, ATC and recently a fueling company (because of the current fuel issues in South Africa). Sure, there are still some issues with cooperation but can you imagine that a ground handler representative would pick up the telephone of his competitor while he is away? These things happen there.

Performance: Needless to say that they have improved their on-time performance and many other areas. They even publish the airline's performance on the Internet. With the airline's consent. And every morning they have a briefing with the airlines where each airline sets their punctuality target for the day (so does the airport). Every hour they check where they are.

I am sure we will hear many more success stories about ACSA. Particularly after ACSA has won a bid for the expansion, maintenance and operation of Guarulhos, Brazil's busiest airport, located at a suburb of the city of São Paulo.

The role of transparency in Airport CDM

How much transparency does Airport CDM consider when it wants to facilitate the sharing of accurate and timely information? Is sharing of EOBT and similar information addressing the real need of transparency?

Sharing operational data is, in my opinion, not sufficient. Only the sharing of problems, quality, output and performance will increase internal and external pressure for both managers and staff to act. And, it will make yourself more credible towards your partners.