Air Serv

Reinventing the service industryKeith Regan reports on how focused training, respect for workers and a focus on operational excellence has Air Serv poised to shake up the entire service economy. Since launching in 2002, Air Serv has been providing a host of services to airlines across the United States and the United Kingdom, taking over cabin cleaning, skycap services, shuttle bus operations and passenger wheelchair services as airlines look to focus their own resources elsewhere.  Today, Air Serv has more than 7,000 employees serving over 25 airlinesÔÇöincluding United, Delta, American and FedExÔÇöin 27 markets. The company had $150 million in revenue in 2007. Air Serv has grown rapidly by using technology and other tools to create a culture of operational excellence. This approach has enabled the company to develop a reputation as more than just the lowest-cost provider, says Doug Kreuzkamp, a senior vice president based in San Francisco who oversees the companyÔÇÖs operations in the western US. ÔÇ£Over the years, we have always differentiated ourselves by delivering premium service. With the economic challenges we face in todayÔÇÖs aviation industry, cost reduction is a primary driver as well,ÔÇØ he says. In recent years, that has meant adopting a balanced scorecard approach to track, measure and improve performance, along with management systems and techniques that leverage the latest technology. ÔÇ£We have made the transition from start-up enterprise to become a highly systematized organization that delivers a standard product across all lines of service in all operations,ÔÇØ Kreuzkamp adds. Air Serv uses a measure of total cost of ownership to rank itself against competitors, seeking not only to provide the best service in any given area but also to do so in a way that makes it easier for airlines to manage and oversee these outsourced services, says Mike Hough, a senior vice president who oversees operations from the companyÔÇÖs Chicago location. Hough cites the companyÔÇÖs airport terminal wheelchair services as an example of how the changes happen. ÔÇ£In the old days, airlines used belly-button counting as a key metric for measuring quality. They would identify the number of people they believed were necessary to deliver a service, and if you had that number of people, you met the standard,ÔÇØ he says. Air Serv has enabled a more effective and efficient approach by deploying mobile workforce technology that enables centralized dispatchers to know where workers are at any given moment. This allows the company to track the productivity of each worker. With that information in hand, the company has developed behavioral and experience profiles to identify the most productive applicants and employees. This in turn allows the company to seek, hire and train more of those types of workers as well as learn what it can do to make other employees more productive. As the solution has matured, Air Serv has made its service offering more effective, enabling the company to anticipate peak operations and handle the inevitable flight delays that generate spikes in demand. ÔÇ£Before, the only way to handle the spikes and crunch times was to increase your employee headcount,ÔÇØ Hough adds. ÔÇ£We now use technology to take those costs out.ÔÇØ In addition, because the current generation of technology shows Air ServÔÇÖs dispatchers where each employee is at any time, agents the airlines once used to monitor wheelchair service providers are no longer necessary. ÔÇ£We have enabled airlines to further reduce their total cost of ownership as a result.ÔÇØElsewhere, Air Serv has used visual workplace tools to boost their quality ratingsÔÇöand safety record. For instance, cabin cleaning services were once performed by higher paid employees who worked directly for the airlines. Airlines now outsource these positions to companies like Air Serv. Today, many cabin cleaners are first- or second-generation immigrants who speak English as a second language and have difficulty reading the airlinesÔÇÖ text-intensive training manuals. To ensure service does not suffer due to communication barriers, Air Serv has broken down the cabin cleaning process into step-by-step instructions that are represented visually in training materials packed with pictures and colorful diagrams, says Kreuzkamp. ÔÇ£Our team members are visual learners; we build and deliver training programs tailored to their skill set. This allows us to transform an individual passed over as ÔÇÿunskilledÔÇÖ by many companies to become a proficient, process-driven, and highly productive worker,ÔÇØ he adds. Air Serv takes a similar approach with respect to safety, a major emphasis at the company.┬á For example, the process for driving cleaning vehicles to aircraft is broken down into discrete steps that must be followed precisely each time out. This and similar processes have helped Air Serv reduce its employee lost-time incident rate to 1.1, down from a rate of 1.7 in 2003 and far below the industry rate of 8.4.Employee recognition and reward is a key ingredient in the Air Serv recipe for success, says Megan Jones, general counsel and senior vice president of human resources. Reward systems are customized to motivate individual performance. ÔÇ£We try to get away from a standard wage package and emphasize a sense of pride of ownership in the services our employees provide every day.ÔÇØEmployees are rewarded with pins that many wear with pride on their uniforms each day.┬á Once a year, members of the companyÔÇÖs ÔÇ£110% ClubÔÇØ are invited to formal gala celebrations held across the country. ÔÇ£We want them to realize the huge role they play in our success and feel appreciated for performing their jobs at such a high level,ÔÇØ Jones adds. While the company sees many opportunities to expand into new markets and provide additional services to airline customers, Air Serv also believes its approach to managed services can translate to markets outside of aviation, such as the private security and cleaning industries. ÔÇ£Leveraging the capabilities of demand forecasting, staff planning, people development in low wage categories and revolutionary mobile workforce technologies across other non-aviation verticals is in our power alley,ÔÇØ says Hough.Along the way, Air ServÔÇÖs overriding philosophy has been to provide its employees with rewarding and satisfying jobs. ÔÇ£That is our real passion,ÔÇØ Kreuzkamp says. ÔÇ£Hundreds of thousands of Americans no longer have the opportunities they once had in the manufacturing and service industries now offshored in China and India. We reach out to these individuals with an eye toward offering stable employment today and the training and growth opportunities to develop meaningful long-term careers tomorrow.ÔÇØ As a testament to its approach and values, many of the companyÔÇÖs field managers started as wheelchair attendants and cabin cleaners and have since moved up through the company over the years. ÔÇ£Our competitors mistakenly believe that lower-skilled workers are fungible,ÔÇØ Kreuzkamp says. ÔÇ£Within our environment and culture, these individuals flourish, especially when they realize the opportunities in front of them. By making our operations as efficient as possible, we will continue growing and generating greater opportunities for our employees. ThatÔÇÖs exciting.ÔÇØ┬á