Speaker Biograghy: Florian started his career in aviation at Panasonic Avionics, the leading supplier of inflight entertainment systems. This was followed by almost a decade in the airline world in various roles at Swiss International Air Lines, the last four years in charge of cabin crew planning. He joined Zurich Airport at the beginning of 2015, where he’s in charge of planning and analytics.


Day 3 - 16 March
Session: Increasing Airport Capacity

11:25 - 11:55 - Power-by-the-hour – optimising check-in counter utilisation through new usage fees
Synopsis: At ZRH, check-in counters were rented to handling agents on a seasonal basis. Consequently, airlines served by the same agent were clustered whenever possible and schedule-required counter subletting was a complex and unpopular process. The allocation process was inflexible and the utilisation suboptimal. To improve the situation and avoid having to build additional infrastructure prematurely, a new pay-per-use charging scheme was developed. This was done in close collaboration with the handing agents to ensure their concerns were considered and addressed. The new usage fee has proved effective: the existing infrastructure is used in a more efficient and flexible way.

Audience will learn:

• When check-in infrastructure is left to end users, they tend to only optimise their own staff resources
• Infrastructure utilisation is suboptimal as a consequence, resulting in a need for additional counters
• Introducing a pay-per-use scheme incentivises efficient planning and use by all stakeholders, leading to greater flexibility and improved utilisation
• It is crucial to involve stakeholders in the transition process to develop key elements of the new scheme
• Charging based on usage has effectively improved utilisation and realised synergies