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Swissport to provide Central Load Planning service to Virgin Atlantic Airways

12-May-2008
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Swissport to provide Central Load Planning service to Virgin Atlantic Airways

Tags :Maintenance & Ground Handling, Virgin Atlantic

Swissport UK confirmed it is to provide a new Central Load Planning service to Virgin Atlantic worldwide, under a new contract between the two businesses. The service will be operated by Swissport from mid-May-08 for all of Virgin Atlantic’s fleet on all services globally. Although Swissport provides a full ground handling service for Virgin Atlantic at London Gatwick (since 2004) and Manchester Airports, the contract covers Virgin Atlantic services at other UK airports and for aircraft in other countries. This is the first time that Swissport has provided its Central Load Planning skills to an entire airline.

 

Load Planning involves calculating the load and balance of an aircraft and the balance to ensure the aircraft flies safely and efficiently whilst maximising payload opportunities. Data about load and balance is then forwarded directly to the aircraft flight deck using ACARS (Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System). The load sheet report is generated by a small teleprinter on the flight deck, wherever the aircraft is at the time.
 
“This is an exciting and significant new contract for Swissport,” stated Ian Barrie, Swissport’s Operations Director, who is heading the new team said. “We had a lot to consider; we needed to ensure that our staff were trained to deal with any load planning scenario they may be presented with. The service must also be professional, resilient, and be maintained through a wide range of eventualities such as a loss of connectivity or major mains power failure. Our safety requirements, business continuity and recovery plans needed to be well thought through to guarantee that this twenty-four hour critical service would be provided to our customer whatever happened.”
 
Swissport has set up a new fully serviced centre, near Manchester Airport, and will have a dedicated team working on the Central Load Planning
 
The system will be built using D Plan from EDS.

© Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Date posted: 12-May-08

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