Contributing to safety, efficiency and the overall passenger experience is a staple of quality ground support at airports. Unifi Aviation’s team at Calgary International Airport (YYC) knows this well.
Since taking over lines of service at YYC at the end of 2023, Unifi’s team has surpassed numerous metrics. The team is proud of its a strong relationship with airline and airport officials; its response to incidents and safety; and its on-the-ground problem solving.
“The passion of our team is unmatched, and everyone puts themselves in the shoes of our guests,” explains Connor Hart, Unifi station manager for WestJet in Calgary, applauding his team’s dedication and resilience.
For their excellent collaboration, communication and ability to adapt to meet the needs of a situation, Unifi Aviation YYC has received the 2024 Ground Support Team of the Year award.
Ground Support Worldwide created the Ground Support Team of the Year Award to spotlight deserving ground crews and acknowledge their unwavering commitment, tireless efforts and indispensable contributions to the overall aviation ecosystem.
“We are nothing without being safe and being able to shift the narrative in YYC has been a challenge, but incredibly rewarding. As an example, we often get stopped in the halls by the airport authority, praising us for our commitment and partnership with safety within the community,” Hart says. “Our overall performance is something that even other airports in Canada are talking about. We are not exactly where we want to be, but being able to battle through to show improvements – despite a shortage of ground service equipment due to supply chain challenges – is amazing.
“I cannot wait to show the world what we can do once we are fully set in this station.”
Because Unifi is located at many stations with numerous customers across its network, Hart says his team at YYC can set a high bar and measure their performance against the company’s other internal teams. This creates healthy competition and helps all strive for improvement.
“Something that sets us apart from other companies is our ability to analyze the safety of any station,” Hart says. “Companies will always have data, but often cannot analyze it into something useful. At Unifi, we use multiple data points to target risk areas in our operations to mitigate safety challenges and keep our teams and customers safe.”
Enhanced Training
In order to ensure the YYC team was compliant with its customer and to ensure teams knew what was expected of them when completing technical tasks, station leaders for Unifi conducted twice-daily training sessions over multiple weeks. This resulted in documented training records for more than 900 agents at the station.
Each session had 30 agents and training was completed on time.
“We quickly gauged what each team member required and put them into distinct categories,” Hart explains. “The timeline was as quickly as possible because it truly had to be done ‘yesterday’ but we also did not want to rush such critical training. We trained while also keeping operations running.”
Unifi leadership also increased airside driver training. Instructor led training – which included a 30-question exam on the rules and maps of the airport and required a passing mark of 90 percent, ensured team members understood expectations.
Airside driver’s training also included a familiarization drive with a Unifi instructor; a practical test on the airside; and a completed night endorsement
Customer Focus
Unifi Aviation is proud of its established partnership it has formed with WestJet. The companies have worked together to host safety events, holiday gatherings and joint working sessions to ensure ground handling operations are optimized. Unifi employees also supported aircraft parking during multiple labor disputes with zero aircraft damage. What's more, Unifi conducted training for WestJet’s insourced ground operators.
One example of Unifi’s collaboration with WestJet was the roll out of the airline’s new baggage reconciliation system (BRS), to scan bags on and off the aircraft and in bag rooms. This helped the airline meet a long-standing goal.
Unifi’s ramp team – including ramp leads, bag room agents, duty managers and supervisors – became fully trained on the new system and its hardware within two weeks for launch, and quickly turned in baggage operations that were the highest-performing for all WestJet hubs. This fact is magnified by the fact that Calgary’s baggage volume is twice the size of WestJet’s next largest hub, Unifi officials note.
The team has a missed bag rate of less than two bags per 1,000.
“Missing baggage has been a newsworthy topic since the pandemic and was a challenge at YYC. Immediately after taking over operations, we saw significant improvements in this area, even though it was our first holiday season,” Hart says.
Unifi officials strive to have their teams treat each piece of baggage as if it was their own.
“Each piece of luggage is sorted into an area for a departure where teams are manually sorting from one large area and placing it into different containers and carts to ensure they are brought to the correct aircraft,” Hart says. “From there, each bag is scanned to ensure it is going to the right place and that the guest is still going on that aircraft.”
Problem Solving
Unifi implemented a system for GSE employee signoffs to indicate when staff members were arriving for and leaving their shifts. The team created a “drive-through” system, allowing sign-off from a shift. They have snice set-up a computer/tablet-enabled system to allow sign-off as agents go through the breakroom at the end of shifts.
Unifi’s approach to problem solving also improves its safety culture. The company reports that proactive safety audits at YYC have increased more than 80 percent while ramp performance incidents have decreased by more than 15 percent.
Ground handling agents must work in various climates. At YYC, that range of climate changes tremendously throughout the year.
“The public certainly knows the temperature at the airport, but something they may not know is how our teams operate in that temperature. We operate in -40 degrees C as well as the opposite, 40 degrees in addition to the radiant heat from the ramp surface,” Hart says. “We work night and day to ensure we have proper staffing levels going into extreme cold or heat.
“In the winter, we provide our teams with cold weather gear, ice cleats, goggles, hand warmers, etc. We put on events with warm food and often have a coffee tab going at the shop in the airport to keep spirits going and our teams warm,” he adds. “In the summer, we provide our teams with reusable water bottles and have water and Gatorade jugs on each support vehicle to provide to our teams.”
Recognizing the People
As the 2024 Ground Support Team of the Year, Unifi Aviation YYC will host a celebration for the team. Hart says the team at YYC is honored to be recognized and proud of what they have accomplished at their station.
“We all expect the highest regard for what we do, but it’s often hard to look back and reflect on how far we have come,” he says. “We know we have more to do and even better performances on the horizon.”
