In the last two years we have been completely transforming our airport activity, and remote-controlled pusher tractors are at the forefront of our commitment to innovation and sustainability, as their use reduces noise pollution and emissions.
IBAS is the first handling operator to use these new tugs in Spain, manufactured by the German company Mototok. What’s more, we were the first in the world to use the electric push back on regional aircraft.
This fact has not gone unnoticed by the sector’s media. Actualidad Aerospacial magazine has just published a report about it. You can read it here: https://actualidadaeroespacial.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Actualidad-Aeroespacial-2022-abril.pdf (page 20).
We hope you enjoy reading it.

The last weekend of March we change the time on our clocks, we change our moods, longer days arrive, days of light, days of summer. Iberia Airport Services, also starts the new season, happy and committed to help transport the illusions of thousands of passengers, and together, welcome the spring.

We leave behind the last two years to face the Easter campaign with renewed energy and great enthusiasm, the first major challenge of the year, due to the volume of flights and passengers to be handled in just a few days. At all our airports we are doubling our efforts and are already preparing for the arrival of a “New Summer”.

During the Easter holiday period we have 10,080 operations planned, which means handling no less than 160% more activity than we had last year, and only 8% less than in 2019.

Our client airlines are also back in the air, ready to get back to work, Czech Airlines (OK) in Madrid, Lufthansa (LH) in Jerez de la Frontera, Blue Bird (BBG) in Barcelona. Other companies have chosen us and are starting operations with Iberia Airport Services; Eurowings Discover (4Y) in Jerez de la Frontera, Edelweiss (WK) in Bilbao, Air Alsie in Palma de Mallorca and Ibiza, ITA (AZ) in Mahon, Fly Play (OG) in Madrid, Malaga and Palma de Mallorca, Swiss International Air Lines (LX) in Jerez de la Frontera, Chatay (CX) in Madrid and Barcelona. We are working together to make the new season perfect.

We have been preparing, we have been recruiting for temporary staff at many of our airports, 800 conversions were carried out in March, which represents an 11% increase in staffing levels. We promoted and invested in training hours for our agents. The command area was reinforced to monitor and control operations.

The ground equipment needs at each of our airports were reviewed in detail. Our fleet has been reviewed and inspected, especially the window boxes, as they include air conditioning and are the ones that receive our passengers on their transfer to the aircraft; the rest of the equipment, ladders, belts, towing tractors, all have been overhauled.
Ramp processes have been reviewed with the Checklist, safety processes are monitored and reviewed with real time notification of any incident.
In addition, our cleaning and baggage delivery suppliers have already adapted all the services they provide us with to the increase in activity that the new season entails.

We asked three of our airports to tell us how they have prepared for this campaign.

David Martínez Álvarez, Manager at A Coruña Airport, tells us how they have prepared. –

“At A Coruña airport, we have programmed the staff at the stopover to be able to attend to passenger check-in, reinforcing the shifts with a few more desks, especially during the peaks of 4 planes that we have. We have reinforced the baggage claims desk (LL) at these peaks, in order to speed up any possible incidents that may occur.
In the ramp area, safety inspections have recently been carried out on the operation of all the equipment and we have checked that all maintenance is up to date, minimising possible breakdowns. Together with the central office, the ground equipment has been sized for the whole summer, in order to provide the best possible service to all the companies that will be operating.
The ramp staff shifts have also been reinforced, in anticipation of the increase in baggage to be handled. The PMR´s service has also been reinforced with more staff, which we also attend to at LCG”.

Pedro Linero, Senior Manager of Peninsula Airports, comments on the measures taken by one of the busiest airports these days:

“Malaga is one of the favourite destinations for Easter, passenger traffic will increase these days by 20%, so we have taken extraordinary measures in all passenger processes. I would highlight, for example, the opening of some counters in advance for most of the companies to H-150 (Vueling (VY), Iberia Express (I2), British Airways (BA), Aer Lingus (EI) and Finnair (AY), anticipating the closure of the same. We have reinforced the Lost&Found and the gardener services in time slots where we may have an increase of remote aircraft. In addition, we have held a meeting with the AENA media allocation department to try to ensure that the remote stand schedule is favourable to us. In short, we are ready, it will be a good season”.

Corinne Martínez, Manager at the airports of San Sebastián (EAS), Pamplona (PNA) and Vitoria (VIT), summarises the preparations for each of the stopovers.

“At San Sebastian Airport, since last month we have been reviewing with AENA the schedules and the allocation of resources. The start of Easter Week coincides with a special operation due to the ORONA shareholders’ meeting at EAS. And on the 8th, 2 new Volotea routes will be inaugurated. We are setting up an additional counter to improve check-in times, reinforcing shifts to cover the airport’s operating hours. We have managed the transfer of a conveyor belt from Madrid-Barajas to EAS to cover peak activity.
In Pamplona, all check-in and boarding counters that have not been used throughout the year are being reviewed; we are reinforcing shifts to cover practically the airport’s operating hours; we are holding meetings with AENA to analyse the most critical days, such as 8 (ORONA event), 13, 14 and 18 April.
And at Vitoria airport, although there is no increase in scheduled activity for the summer, we have special Easter Week operations on 13, 14 and 18 April. We also dispatch with AENA to control the scheduling and slot allocation; and we support the operation with staff from Pamplona”.

Iberia Airport Services, ready to take off with each of our customers.

Happy Easter!

In 2015 Iberia Airport Services (IBAS) became the leading provider of ramp handling services to third parties in the Aena network, with a presence at 29 airports, including Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona-El Prat, Palma de Mallorca, Malaga, Alicante, Asturias, Bilbao, Gerona, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Menorca, Reus, Santiago de Compostela, Tenerife North and Tenerife South. Among Aena’s 20 largest airports, it is only absent in Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Seville, Valencia and the tandem La Gomera-El Hierro. We interviewed José Luis de Luna, who is the director of airports at IBAS, the company he has been working for for almost nine years, although he has 30 years’ experience in the sector, having previously worked for Aena and FCC airport services companies such as Eurohandling and Flightcare.

What responsibilities does your position within Iberia Airport Services entail?

At Iberia I started as airport network manager, being responsible for all the facilities except Madrid. Now my position as airport director occupies all the airports, the 29 that we obtained from the 2015 tenders. My commitment, so to speak, is complete. I am responsible for the income statement, i.e. the economic result that the handling business has to deliver. Also from the point of view of operations, operational safety, human resources, training, the commercial side, etc.

What are the figures for aircraft handled by Iberia Airport Services in 2020 and 2021 and what do they represent with respect to the reference year of 2019? What economic impact do these figures represent?

Indeed, 2019 is the year we now take as the benchmark year in all areas. At that time we set the milestone of exceeding 100 million passengers across the entire airport network on board some 450,000 aircraft (1), with a turnover of €470 million.

Then came the atypical 2020, which after its ups and downs accounted for only 40% of 2019 values.

In 2021, IBAS served 199,038 aircraft – up 43.8 per cent on 2020 – handled 32.9 million pieces of baggage – up 81.4 per cent – and handled more than 328,600 tonnes of freight, up 32 per cent on 2020. Financial figures are not yet available and will be published on 25 February. This year 2021 has had a continuous upward recovery curve, until the last two months, which have been weighed down by the appearance of the omicron variant of the virus. These figures mean that in 2021 we will have recovered around 70% of the values of 2019. For the same reason as omicron, the first two months of 2022 have been weak, but nevertheless the outlook for this year is optimistic: we expect to end up with similar or even better results than in 2021.

Other figures to take into account are those of staff and equipment. In 2019 we reached a peak of 9,000 people (we must take into account the high seasonality of some airports). Iberia Airport Services has a total of 8,500 pieces of equipment of all types, ranging from a push back tractor or a planter to a baggage trolley.

(1) weighted aircraft. This Aena concept is used, whereby each aircraft model has a value in ramp handling work, with a reference value for models equivalent to the A319. Regional aircraft, with simpler needs, are weighted below this value, while wide-body aircraft, which are much more complex, are weighted above it.

“We have been clearly committed to sustainability and reducing CO2 emissions for some time now, and in recent years we have invested 100 million euros in renewing all our equipment”.

What was the hardest time during the pandemic alert and how did you manage the company’s staff and equipment?

The most complicated month was April 2020, with a 95% drop in activity, i.e. we only handled 5% of the traffic with several airports practically closed. May was very similar.

In terms of personnel, we were clear that we wanted to have a commitment to stability and quality of employment, which we have been able to maintain thanks to a tool made available by the State, such as the ERTE. In this way, apart from some contracts that were coming to an end and that we obviously could not renew, the workforce has not had any departures and has been reactivated little by little, as traffic has been recovering. In addition, we made a great effort to supplement the salary provided by the SEPE, up to 100%. In November 2020, this supplementary amount had to be reduced and from March 2021, given the company’s economic situation (Iberia ended up losing around 1.5 billion euros), it could no longer be maintained, although we must also consider that there were fewer and fewer workers in the ERTE and we even ended up removing all of them.

Regarding equipment, a preservation plan was put in place at all airports, so our maintenance provider had to stop and protect mechanical and other elements such as wheels. As far as possible, we tried to move them to more protected spaces, such as a workshop. Equipment that was left out in the open had to be completely covered with plastic sheeting. In turn, this work had to be reversed afterwards, with a de-preservation that was practically completed in 2021.

On the human side, I have to highlight the behaviour of our workers, just as happened with the storm Filomena; in the most complicated moments they have had an exemplary response.

What are your forecasts for market recovery in the short term (3-5 years)?

In our business plan, which we are currently implementing and which runs from 2022 to 2025, we are defining two clear phases. We consider 2022 and 2023 as two years of “crossing the desert”, still complicated, in which we do not believe we can still reach the levels of 2019 and, therefore, we will have to continue with some of the measures we have had to implement previously. When are we going to recover the values of 2019? If no new variants or unforeseen circumstances arise, almost certainly in 2024, or even at the end of 2023. This does not mean that, at specific moments, in certain months and at certain airports, we will achieve 100% of 2019 activity. In fact, this has already happened in 2021: Palma de Mallorca, for example, reached the 2019 level at certain times during the summer. Tenerife Norte even surpassed them. The smaller airports or those in the north are, on the other hand, the ones whose recovery is the most delayed. The other two years, 2024 and 2025, are expected to see a recovery in activity to similar or even higher levels than in 2019.

Aena will divide the concession of a total of 41 licences for the period 2023-2029 into 21 lots. How many are Iberia bidding for and what would be considered a good result?

We are leaders in Spain and we are going to bid for all the airports. Right now we are present in 29 facilities. Our ambition is to expand our presence to more airports, in addition to continuing in the ones where we are. Therefore, the minimum we aspire to is to repeat the same result as in 2015. Obviously Madrid and Barcelona are essential for us, as they are the hubs of Iberia and Vueling, respectively.

The draft specifications were in the hands of the handling companies for some time to make their final comments before the final document was published at the end of 2021. What contributions did Iberia make and have these been taken into account?

The draft was in the hands of all the actors, not only the handling agents, but also others such as airlines, equipment manufacturers, etc., individually and as a whole, through the sector’s employers’ association, ASEATA (association of ground handling services companies at airports), which distributed it to all its associates. On 30 November, which was the deadline, we presented our proposals.

We understand that Aena will take on board all these allegations and will add those it deems appropriate to the final specifications. We assume that the final specifications will be published before the summer so that we can prepare the bids and before the end of the year the tender is resolved, so that the new awardees can begin their work in the first half of 2023, fulfilling the commitment to renew the handling agents at the airports every seven years.

The evaluation of the bids will be balanced on a 50/50 basis between the technical and economic evaluation. We – and the rest of the companies as well – have made many comments related to this technical part, for example, regarding the electrification of the equipment, how Aena intends to deal with it, etc. We at ASEATA have asked for more value to be given to the technical part, which is what ultimately provides quality of service, as it includes operational safety, training, etc. We believe that it should weigh more in the weighting than the economic part. We have also detected some errors. For example, in the grouping of the lots, because there are airports that have a first licence in one lot and a second in another lot, which may create incompatibilities. If the first lot is awarded, it would not be possible to obtain the second lot.

We know that a large number of companies from other EU countries are going to apply, which means that there will be strong competition, more so than in other tenders. As part of Aena’s specifications, technical and economic solvency is being established so that the companies that apply can guarantee that, if they are awarded the contract, they will comply with the requirements of the bids submitted. Aena is very sensitive to ensuring that these bids are objective and transparent, in order to be able to choose the best and that the company that is chosen as the best is also the one that provides the best service. That this offer, which includes quality, job stability, sustainability, innovation, etc., is a reality during the seven years of service provision and does not just remain a “smoke and mirrors offer”.

The objectives set by the airport manager require that 23% of the fleets be sustainable by 2023, rising to a share of 78% by 2030. How will Iberia meet this requirement?

It is a challenge, and we have been clearly committed for years to sustainability and the reduction of CO2 emissions from the point of view of handling equipment and other measures. We have been pioneers, for example, in the introduction of the Mototok electric push-back tractor, which has accumulated more than 5,000 towed aircraft by 2021. There are currently four units in Barcelona and another four in Madrid, which are mainly used in the A320 family fleet, although we have just obtained certification – and we have also started to use it (2) – in the CRJ trailers, which will be very positive for Air Nostrum’s fleet and also for contributing to its own sustainability objectives. This is a very important milestone in which Iberia has participated in close collaboration with both the tractor and the aircraft manufacturer (Bombardier), which is the one that finally provides the certificate.

In order to meet these percentages, we are tackling a complete investment plan. We are not starting from scratch, we have already made significant investments to comply with the previous tender, an amount that almost reached 100 million euros to renew all our equipment, so we are in a position to fully meet the requirement of electrification of equipment. The tender gives a higher score if there is a number of electric vehicles per year, and we are considering exceeding these percentages in each family of equipment, working directly with the manufacturers. We plan to start with around 20% of the fleet and end the seventh year of the tender with 70%, more than meeting the requirements.

(2) The first towing of an Air Nostrum CRJ with a Mototok electric tractor took place on Tuesday 1 February at Madrid-Barajas. IBAS was the first in the world to use this handling equipment on this aircraft model.

Is everything based on electrification?

At the moment, we are not betting on hydrogen, not because we don’t believe in this technology – let’s be clear – but because the infrastructure that is linked to charging the equipment at airports is not sufficiently developed for it to be considered the optimal solution from our point of view, which doesn’t mean that it won’t be in the future.

As for biofuels, Iberia has signed an agreement as an airline with both Repsol and CEPSA for the use of this type of fuel in aviation, an agreement that is also extended for use in all handling equipment that is not electrified, although it is true that the use so far has been minimal, because the production of these fuels of sustainable origin is also still very small, but our commitment is to increase their use in the future.

Iberia’s great rival is Groundforce, owned by Globalia, which is present in places such as Madrid-Barajas, El Prat and Palma de Mallorca. Could the (now partial) takeover process involving Iberia and Air Europa affect these two handling companies and the competitiveness between them?

The sale process has changed a lot since the initial agreement and we do not yet know what the outcome of the negotiations will be. The perimeter of the operation initially did not go beyond the airline and, therefore, did not include Groundforce. But without knowing yet what the outcome of this new move will be, I cannot answer this question. So, first of all, we have to see what the final agreement is, whether Groundforce is included in it or not, as well as what agreements Air Europa will have signed with Groundforce, in case part of Air Europa becomes part of Iberia.

“Through the Go Up project over the last three years we have digitised many processes on the ramp to increase the efficiency of our operations”.

Anything else to add to the above that you think is also important?

In terms of sustainability, the technological innovation on the ramp that has been implemented in the airline’s transformation plan is also important. The company launched in 2018 the Go Up project, to digitise and increase the efficiency of its operations with a large number of initiatives. We have three very, very important projects, which directly affect IBAS. We have changed the operating system from a media management point of view. We contracted SITA to develop a tool, their brand name is AMS, but we have called it Kepler, a real-time ramp task management application. Kepler manages all the parameters related to a handling operation, both at equipment and human level, and some of its modules can even interact with airlines or Aena, providing data for their own control. This tool has been of great help to Vueling, which represents 75-80% of our total operations in Barcelona, being elected low cost company of the year, as well as the most punctual in Europe. Similarly, Barcelona airport was among the five most punctual airports in Europe in 2021.

Another of our tools is related to mobility. We want to provide our agents with mobile devices with access to Microsoft’s O365 platform, which integrates several functionalities in a single device. Access to operational documentation of the companies, its use as a transmitter or walkie-talkies, interaction with chats and bots for quick consultations or the completion of forms and reports in real time in an agile and dynamic way are some of the applications that we are already achieving.

The third is the Iris project, which provides access to the automation of our Cargo Control Centre (CLC) for issuing the load sheet, making it mobile on the aircraft. It allows it to be updated in real time directly on the mobile application, by the load coordinator or supervisor.

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For the first time at Santiago de Compostela airport, Iberia Airport Services has served a Canadian company, Westjet, which has contracted our services to handle a series of charter flights, operating with a Boing 737-700/800 aircraft every 15 days, from 15 March until 29 June, connecting St. John’s Newfoundland (YYT) with the Galician city.

After months of intense work and weekly remote meetings between a local team at Santiago airport, led by our stopover manager, Antonio Ruiz, and the account manager in Madrid, Carmen Martinez from IBAS, together with the Regional General Manager of Europe, the Charter Operations Manager and the Ground Operation Manager of Westjet, the first flight landed on a typical cloudy day.

In addition, on the day of the inaugural flight, IBAS welcomed WestJet’s ground operations team for the first time to show them around the airport, the IBAS facilities and to ensure that all the material and human resources were ready according to the requirements of the Canadian airline. Carmen Martinez highlights:
“After months of online work to accommodate the time differences, it was a pleasure to supervise and coordinate the operation together so that everything went smoothly. Our business philosophy at IBAS is not only to provide services, but we always try to accompany our airlines with care and dedication. We know that opening a new route at a new airport is critical for them and we want to make a difference by being in the process from start to finish. We like to know and feel the product they offer to passengers to ensure an excellent service”.

On the one hand, our commercial team designs a tailor-made operation with each client, taking into account all their technical, procedural and operational requirements and centralising all the necessary support by being the people they trust to resolve any H24 queries; our dedicated team at each airport puts the finishing touch with their experience, knowledge and ability to adapt.

This is how we work at IBAS: we design a tailor-made suit for each client.

The Airports Council International-Europe (ACI Europe) has just published the general ranking of airports, with three Spanish airports in the top 15: Madrid-Barajas in 8th place with 24,119,214 passengers. In 11th place, Barcelona-El Prat with 18,814,547 passengers; and in 15th place, Palma de Mallorca with 14,488,144 passengers.
In addition, Palma de Mallorca also stood out in December among the top five for showing the greatest recovery in traffic in its category (Group 1 (+25 M passengers per year)).
Iberia Airport Services maintains a 39% market share at Palma de Mallorca airport, which in 2021 meant more than 16,000 operations between the 41 client companies we serve. This is 30% less activity than in 2019, almost reaching pre-pandemic levels in months such as August and December.
Palma de Mallorca Airport is a seasonal airport whose peak season traditionally begins at Easter, with flights increasing every month until the end of September. At Iberia Airport Services we cope with this seasonality with a discontinuous permanent staff, accustomed to working under enormous pressure for several months.
The pandemic has also put this airport to the test, adding to the seasonal nature of the situation, difficulties such as reincorporating an ERTE workforce that has also had to continually adapt to COVID requirements. Difficulties that have done nothing but make all our employees grow and turn Palma de Mallorca into a safety airport par excellence in which there has been no AOG caused by IBAS during the last two years.
“The fact that no serious incident has been caused to an aircraft in the last two years is a recognition of the effort and awareness of our employees, who have internalised the procedures naturally, thanks to the dedicated Safety team and the extensive knowledge of the commanders of our structure,” acknowledges Jesús García, Quality and Operational Safety Manager. “Thanks to a lot of field work near our ramp, many hours of dedication, briefings, report analysis, feedback, proactive listening, decision making and adaptation of actions, the safety culture has taken hold at all levels, despite the pandemic, and we are proud to see that work well done is paying off.

Kepler never sleeps! This is how categorical the members of the Kepler team are, a project in continuous evolution that, hand in hand with our airports, manages the operations, and all those involved in them, for the dispatch of an aircraft. This week, for the first time in two years, the whole team got back together again in Madrid to prepare the Kepler deployments at the airports of Mallorca, Malaga and Alicante, as well as to continue improving the tool at the airports where it is already in use. The configuration of the planning rules and the training of our agents are key aspects of change management at the airports. The role of the Kepler team consists of parameterising the new tool to the needs of each stopover, leading the training of the agents and accompanying the local team at all times as experts in the tool.
Francisca Carbonell, coordinator of Mallorca Airport and part of the Kepler team, comments that “we have been participating in this project for many months, with many good moments in our backpacks and many lessons learned from the 23 airports where Kepler has already landed. After this week of preparation, we are looking forward to kicking off in Palma”.
José Manuel Arroniz, Chief Agent in Alicante, says that “one of the most enriching tasks of the project for me has been to train so many different colleagues; each team is new and we learn things at each airport. It makes us grow professionally and personally. I have no doubt that the deployment in Malaga and Alicante is going to be a success”.
Check out our website to find out more about Kepler and the value it brings to the Iberia Airport Services operations team and our customers: https://handling.iberia.es/kepler/

Iberia employs 6,023 women. Engineers, maintenance technicians, pilots, flight attendants, administrative staff, check-in and boarding agents… Eight of them talk to El Español’s MagasIN about their careers and equality.
Ana María Zapata is head ramp agent at Iberia Airport Services at Barajas airport. She works in a group where the presence of women is still scarce, only 9% of the workforce.
There are very hard days, in inclement weather, but “my experience at Iberia is very good”.
The most positive thing recently, she says, “has been to see, once again, the quality of the human capital that makes up Iberia’s workforce”. During the pandemic, Iberia converted three of its passenger aircraft into freighters. “Loading aircraft in bulk was a laborious and even tedious job, but we all knew that the company was making an effort to be active and we were proud to be able to lend a hand,” he concludes.

Maria Guilarte is Senior Passenger Service Manager at Madrid airport. An industrial and aeronautical engineer, she has worked in different areas of the company since she joined Iberia in 2008. She recognises that “in Airports I have experienced one of my most intense periods: the most beautiful thing was receiving all those repatriated during the harsh pandemic or, if I think of another type of emotion, Filomena was also very hard, I spent several days at the airport, without setting foot in my house”.

If you want to read these and six other conversations with high-flying women, click here

Iberia is firmly committed to achieving the decarbonisation of air transport and to this end is implementing a whole range of initiatives in all its areas of operation. One of these is the renewal of Iberia Airport Services’ fleet of mobile equipment.
Over the last year we have strengthened our collaboration with the most important manufacturers of ground equipment in our sector (COBUS, ITW, TLD, GUINAULT, CHARLATTE and JBT) to lead tests with electrical equipment from different families (GPU, pushback, gardener, electric tractor, platform) at airports such as Palma de Mallorca, Malaga, Barcelona and Madrid.
The incorporation of this equipment into our fleet means qualitative and quantitative improvements both for climate change and for the user of this equipment.

•  Emissions, noise and vibrations are reduced to zero, thus achieving a cleaner airport environment.
•  They are user-friendly and well accepted by users.
•  They are safer due to their advanced technology.
•  Their preventive and corrective maintenance is more economical in the long term.
• They have lithium batteries in many cases, which improves their energy efficiency.

We have also renewed the Management System certified by the ISO 14.001:2015 standard, which demonstrates our commitment to reducing the environmental impact, also of our handling activity. These initiatives are part of the company’s Sustainability Plan, which cuts across all areas. At Iberia Airport Services we work every day to reduce CO2 emissions together with manufacturers, suppliers and institutions such as AENA and to seek optimal solutions that maximise the level of operation we offer our customers, without forgetting the environment.