Flagship Features: Aviation Insights and Enhancing the Passenger Experience with Courtney Wright

Video Transcript

How Does Flagship Utilize Technology to Increase Operational Efficiency at Airports?

What we’ve really started to see is our working hours at night where we can really do some of that deep dive cleaning is getting shorter and shorter. The last flight of the night is arriving later and the first flight in the morning is taking off so some airports we may only have 2 or 3 hours to get the floors done, to get the bathrooms deep cleaned and so that’s really kudos to our operations team and our Frontline Employees that are doing a lot of work and a very little bit of time and we’re able to kind of utilize some of that autonomous equipment and those Cobots and really make our employees more efficient during that small window that they have.

And like we always say it’s really not autonomous they’re Cobots for a reason they really need to be managed by an employee but it certainly can help improve efficiency and you know I mean I think Flagship really was at the the forefront of you know kind of the IOT and the smart restroom technology. We’ve been partnering with Trax for gosh four maybe five years now um they really were the first live in market in airports with this kind of technology and we saw that early on and knew they were going to be great partners.

Airports are looking for data the more data that they can collect and analyze and then utilize the better.

So I think we’re just going to start seeing more and more of this and then it’s kind of up to us to figure out how we’re going to utilize it, work with our airport partners, and figure out best practices where we’re still you know engaging our employees and providing the best passenger experience.

What are some Current Facility Pain Points within the Aviation Industry?

You know, I haven’t traveled to an airport or had us work an airport that wasn’t undergoing some kind of you know construction. Whether that’s building a whole new terminal, whether that’s renovating you know older terminals or restrooms. We rely on on our HR and our internal recruiting teams and kind of thinking outside of the box on how we’re going to get people to make sure we’re staffed up for all those new expansions.

One of the biggest trends we’re seeing is with the clubs. I read this week that Delta actually changed their limits on who’s allowed into the club because there were so many passengers trying to get in that these clubs are very overcrowded. Now these private lounges being developed by International Development companies. It’s allowing more people kind of access to that elevated customer experience, and we’re jumping on those services we partner with many lounges across the US especially at airports that we’re currently doing business at it’s an easy transition it makes sense. That’s really something that we’re seeing kind of your average traveler who never would have gone into a club you know 5 years ago having that expectation of that’s where they want to spend their time at the airport now.

There’s a big you know shortage of Maintenance Techs and airports as many of them retired after COVID. You know these airports are so short staff they’re needing their in-house maintenance teams to really focus on their large assets keeping the airport you know cooled and heated and runways lighted and all of those kinds of very important things, and so unfortunately what gets pushed to the bottom is what they think are little things which is you know locks and restrooms and soap dispensers but what truly that is is affecting the whole passenger experience.

What are Airports Doing to Enhance Passenger Experience and How does Flagship Support them?

I’ll mention RDU, so they actually included in their scope restroom appearance technicians. So separate from our janitors from our supervisors actual maintenance techs that are purely dedicated to any kind of passenger facing issue in the restroom so for example, your sink dispensers, any light duty plumbing, your locks, your light fixtures, anything that’s affecting the customer experience while they’re in that restroom. I mean, as a passenger myself, I hate to go in and you know the stalls broken and then I get to the sink and the soap dispenser doesn’t work or the automatic water isn’t turning on. So little things that’s truly a battery being replaced, you know, are being unfortunately um you know kind of left to the bottom of the the tier on things that need to get done because of short staffing so I really liked that an airport like RDU and several others have started to do this since but they kind of set the trend of including that scope in their RFP.

For companies like Southwest they’re using their you know airline technicians and their maintenance Techs for the really big stuff and so we’re going into their airline leasehold spaces so really you know making it not only passenger experience but also employees experience. They’re working for those large Airlines they want to have a nice space that they’re able to function in um and kind of using those light duty techs to achieve that.