GroundSupportWorldWide.com |

Faced with an increasingly competitive and liberalized market, Hamburg Airport has reorganized its ground handling services.

Hamburg Airport's HAM 21 Extension Project is indicative of the progressive nature of Germany's fifth largest commercial gateway. Far from resting on its laurels the airport is aggressively improving services for its near 10 million passengers per annum (mppa) and airline clients.

Of course, the driving force is not merely the philanthropic nature of its management but rather an intuitive understanding that the market it operates in is becoming increasingly competitive as liberalization within the European Union presents ever greater challenges and opportunities.

Aside from the expansion, part of Hamburg's response to this dynamic situation has been the reorganization of its ground handling operations. The airport subsidiaries -- AHS Hamburg Aviation Handling Services, CATS Cleaning & Aircraft Technical Services, STARS Special Transport & Ramp Services and GroundSTARS -- will now have their operations coordinated by a central Ground Handling business unit.

Although Hamburg is the major shareholder in each individual company, it did have partners to consider but as Ulrike Riedel, the new Head of Ground Handling at the airport explains "they were consulted and agreed. After all, the main target -- a successful business -- is shared by all shareholders."

This is not the first time Hamburg has responded to market conditions with changes in its ground handling structure. Almost a decade ago, EU laws on competition led the airport to partially privatize its ground handling units.

"In the mid-90s Hamburg Airport developed the Hamburg Model for an airport organization," Riedel reveals. "A major part of this was the change of ground handling departments into different subsidiaries for transport services and deicing, loading and cleaning. The organization as well as the newly implemented wage agreement was modelled to the specific market and competitive environment at that time. This was an important step to increase the flexibility and the competitiveness of each service."