Delivering cabin clean services for 20 carriers

Challenge

During the pandemic in mid-2020, a major cleaning provider discontinued their operations at London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR). 20 carriers were left without a provider with just 90-days’ notice. This meant any new provider would have to embark on a huge mobilisation effort, involving:

• Negotiating cabin cleaning contracts/pricing with each carrier separately, includingsufficient storage facilities via Heathrow Airport Limited.
• Procuring vehicles and specialist vehicles such as high-loaders, toilet service units, andpotable water service units, alongside crew buses to get staff to and from aircraft acrossthe terminals. Including arranging for each airlines’ stock to be delivered and kits prepared to go onboard aircraft as part of cleaning and provisioning.
• Staff onboarding: including contracts, uniforms, and training per national TUPEr egulations (Transfer of Undertakings - Protection of Employment) and adhering to CAA(Civil Aviation Authority) regulations on secure aircraft cleaning during a time of labour shortages.

Solution

Key to ABM successfully meeting 13 airlines’ diverse needs in such a short timeframe was:

• The deployment of a general manager and a dedicated project manager.
• Experienced ABM duty managers and supervisors.
• Subject matter experts such as HR, Payroll, Accounts IT, etc.
• ABM’s single dashboard integrated system for scheduling, billing and auditing. This was ABM's proprietary in house system for use by our team and clients.
• ABM’s staff time and management system used for efficient allocation of tasks.

ABM adhered to special COVID-19 cleaning and disinfection products, procedures, and equipment, including the use of electrostatic sprayers where required.

Teams focused on disinfecting passenger high-touch points(lockers, trays, armrests, seatbelts, etc.) in all cabin areas. In addition, work needed to be done quickly and efficiently to meet the airlines’ strict turnaround times and achieve OnTime Performance. Our teams had to be flexible enough to effectively react to last-minute flight schedule changes.

Even during a stressful pandemic where labour shortages were prevalent, turnover of ABM’s cabin cleaning staff has been 1% compared to an industry average of 5%.

Benefits

• ABM onboarded 320 people in two phases (nearly all of the team members of the previous provider).
• Within 80 days, ABM was ready to begin cabin cleaning for 13of the affected freight and passenger carriers, seamlessly, onthe day the previous provider discontinued service.
• All of the above challenges were met via the dedication ofan ABM multidisciplinary team, which included Commercial,Operations, Human Resources, Health & Safety, and Training.

ABM mobilised cabin clean for over 20 carriers at Heathrow Airport. Find out how we can make it possible for you by visiting ABM.co.uk.