Pegasus continues its rapid expansion

Over the course of last year, Turkish carrier Pegasus Airlines handled a total of nearly 28 million customers – approximately 17 million flying on services within Turkey and approximately 10.5 million on its international routes. As of March this year, Pegasus had a total of 75 aircraft in its fleet, and 10 more new aircraft will be added during 2018. The growth in operations and fleet size has implications for both its in-house ground handling and its ground service provider partners… as the carrier’s ground operations vice president Murat Demirbilek explains

Pegasus Airlines took over the management of all ground operations for its flights at its main hub of Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport on 1 June 2016. What have you found to be the benefits of that?
Running our own ground operations in our growing business has improved our operational quality and allowed us to meet increasing demand. We have satisfied both our employees and our guests.

We have achieved a 98% OTP (on-time performance) success rate due to these changes. There has also been a significant decrease in ground accidents and baggage-related problems. Our NPS (net promoter score) rating has increased. Our delays have decreased. Consequently, launching our own ground operations service has strengthened our success.

Pegasus Airlines CEO Mehmet Nane has predicted that “real growth [in the aviation sector] will begin in 2018” – have you plans to continue to expand the scope of your ground handling operations as a result of this and Pegasus’ own ongoing growth?
We are currently running a successful [ground handling] operation at Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen and Izmir Adnan Menderes airports. We have prioritised both our ground operations personnel, including their training, and the acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment since we are going to grow further this year.
If needed, we may also grow in other stations in line with management decision-making. However, we have no such plans for the near future.

Have you also continued to build on your collaboration with your ground service provider partners?
Our work and collaboration with ground service providers continues as always. There are many things we have gained, and will continue to gain from each other. We recently entered into a new five-year agreement with Havaş Ground Handling Services. We always support each other in terms of training and knowledge sharing.

Also in this regard, we have made a deal with dnata in Amsterdam to implement a personnel exchange programme for our ground operations teams. Our personnel in the Netherlands will go to Turkey, and vice versa, on temporary assignments to experience each other’s working practices.

In this way, we will both improve the knowledge of our personnel and we will present them with a new world in which they will have new experiences. We have to support such development programmes for the future of our company and industry.

In addition to that, we run joint student training programmes with universities. Contributing to the development of the aviation sector must be among our responsibilities, along with the good management and growth of our company. As an airline with this vision, training personnel for the Turkish aviation sector is very important to us.

Are there any particular aspects of Pegasus’ ground handling requirements and systems that you have focused on over the last three years?
Technology is very important for us. In this regard, we do our personnel and equipment planning using a special program. We have made significant progress in this matter. We have put our plans to simplify our check-in system into action. We will introduce the new face of our system to everybody at the end of this year.
We don’t create the load sheets for the aircraft anymore, but they are directly sent to the aircraft from the office. We will also soon launch our Turnaround Management system for our operational personnel. We will equip them with state-of-the-art equipment and automate everything. In this way, we will be able to measure and evaluate everything we do.

What procedures do you go through when you open up a new Pegasus station to ensure that your ground handling is of as high a quality as possible?
First of all, there must be a need for our ground handling operations at that station. The most important factor in the creation of this need is quality. When the quality drops, we discuss how we would have done it, and we do a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats] analysis and a feasibility study.

In the feasibility study, we determine the number of personnel and equipment needed in order to achieve the quality we want. We consider every aspect of the matter and ask the opinions of various departments. Then we organise things appropriately and move on from there.

Ground and air safety, guest satisfaction, quality and personnel satisfaction are at the heart of everything. We determine our procedures accordingly.

Would you ever consider self-handling at stations outside of Turkey?
Yes; while we are already self-handling at Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen and Izmir Adnan Menderes airports we have undertaken feasibility studies for several international stations. However, as I have mentioned before, the main criterion for moving to self-handle is when we don’t receive the level of quality we want at a station.

Does Pegasus have any other strengths as regards ground handling?
Our unit runs an intense operation that requires 24/7 work. Therefore, the importance of teamwork is very high. Working closely with my colleagues, who are professionals and experts at what they do, harmony is vital. I think this harmony strengthens us and builds our success.

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