2017 : A year in review

At Ozion, we don’t usually spend too much time talking about ourselves: we prefer to talk about the challenges facing the airport PRM (Passengers with Reduced Mobility) sector, solutions to those problems, to organize the annual Airport PRM Leadership Conference and help bring together airports and providers to advance new PRM approaches that work. But today we have allowed ourselves to be a little self-indulgent because we are excited to share with you the many successes of 2017.

New PRM Manager Locations

2017 saw the Ozion PRM Manager being implemented in a highly diverse list of airports. We are very excited about the 4 Airport Deployments started and/or launched in 2017.

We warmly thank our provider and airport partners. Each new instance of the PRM Manager requires a successful collaboration between the airport, the provider(s) and Ozion. This is the only way to ensure the PRM management software system is used to the satisfaction of the teams actually using it on a daily basis and to its full operational, reporting and analytical potential.

Annual Airport PRM Leadership Conference in November, 2017

It was a joy to see over 50 airports and providers from across Europe who attended this year’s Airport PRM Leadership Conference on November 10 take ownership of the event. This year’s attendees were particularly engaged in the event. They demonstrated this by sharing their experiences, speaking candidly about their challenges and taking steps to work together to further certain PRM solutions together.

The low-key yet passionate presentation by Fabien Lawson (MD ADP Passenger Services Terminal 2 ABCD at Paris Charles Gaulle) explaining very frankly how they – ADP’s providers and ADP themselves – managed to keep control of their PRM operations over the last 6 years. It was obvious that this was quite an accomplishment in view of all the changes that happened over that period: a doubling of PRM passenger numbers, the adoption of a new PRM Management software platform (Ozion’s) by 3 different concurrent PRM providers, an increased in overall quality numbers and operational control. The Q&A following his testimonial gave a good indication of how interested the audience was and how attendees related to what he evoked.

The workshop where attendees pooled their experience and ideas on how to help more PRM passengers self-serve in a way that augmented what Roberto Castiglioni, Chair of the Heathrow Accessibility Advisory Group, described as their strong desire for every opportunity to augment self-sufficiency was a striking example of the sector’s ability to harness its collective intelligence to further areas of necessary improvement.

Ozion will be taking feedback from this year’s attendees about what they wish to see next year’s conference address and the formats they would like to be used in order to make the annual November Airport PRM Leadership Conference evolve. We are convinced that the only way to ensure the conference continued success and growth is to make it more relevant than ever – « for everything to stay the same, everything has to change! » (Luigi di tomaso, Prince of Lampedusa, author of the Leopard novel illustrated brought to life by in the famous film of the same name).

Ozion PRM Manager additional features and scope

The latest version of Ozion PRM Manager has expanded reporting features giving clients the complete range of live automatic reports they have been dreaming of for years by default: prenotification ratios for all airlines, PRM passenger agent pick up times, completed PRM jobs as opposed to partial jobs, causes of plane delays (with the relevant detailed reports), « no-show » reports, etc. Special attention was given to live SLA indicators (« Service Level Agreement ») which allow providers, the airport and airlines to see the live status of all the important dimensions of PRM service performance: time-stamped indication of the time to meet a PRM passenger, overall job times as opposed to times stipulated in the contract, the ratio of late jobs to timely jobs, etc. Depending on the individual profiles, the provider can invite the airport and airlines to connect to their Ozion PRM management application to see all real time SLA indicators (Collaboration in action).

Much read article about why PRM is so difficult published by International Airport Review

An article contributed by Ozion to International Airport Review about what makes PRM airport service delivery such a fiendishly difficult one to keep under control and what to do about it, was in the top 10 of most read articles for 2017. We are happy that the industry is now talking more and more freely about specific PRM service challenges. This is contributing powerfully to the informed way many airports are now addressing PRM challenges.

Results of first industry-wide PRM Survey

Ozion sent out a survey to the thousands of people tasked with overseeing and running airport PRM services asking them to rate the 10 biggest problems they faced to make the service work. For each topic, respondents were offered to rate the problem as not an issue, a minor issue, a problem, a big problem or a major problem. The most acute problems rated as « Major » by the greatest proportion of respondents were the airport charge (39 % of respondents), prenotification ratios (35 %) and the use of PRM in lieu of MAAS (30 %). The study also showed that the relationship between airports and PRM providers were largely seen as good (i.e. not a problem), which is reassuring considering the pressure the intensity of the PRM service can put on that relationship. It’s always a pleasure to impart good news!

2018 promises to be an amazing year!

2018 is already looking like another exceptional year for Ozion with new product improvements and partnerships. Much more importantly, at the industry level, we are seeing growing evidence of collaboration between PRM operators (airports and providers) across borders to exchange ideas and solutions on how to improve their respective operations. That movement is one that gives great confidence in the progress we are likely to see again in the year ahead.

Thank you and welcome to 2018!