Iberia Airport Services handled more than 90 million passengers in 2017

• In the past three years Iberia has replaced 58% of its fleet of 8,500 units of ramp equipment.
• Some 39% of Iberia Airport Services’ ground vehicles are now electrically powered.
• In 2017 Iberia’s airport handling division implemented improvements in baggage handling, safety, and invoicing at major airports.

Last year Iberia Airport Services, Iberia’s handling division, served 91.2 million passengers, nearly 3.5% more than in 2016.

Iberia Airport Services operates in 29 Spanish airports where it supplies passenger handling services and ground services to aircraft belonging to Iberia, the IAG group, and almost 200 other customer airlines. Altogether, Iberia Airport Services provided services to more than 342,000 flights operated by these airlines in 2017.

Some 60% of the activity of Iberia’s handling operator is concentrated in the airports of Madrid and Barcelona, followed by Reina Sofia airport located in the South of Tenerife, Majorca, Malaga, Ibiza, Alicante, and Bilbao. Other airports such as Los Rodeos in the North of Tenerife, Jerez de la Frontera, La Palma and Reus, are amongst those which experienced the largest growth.

“Green” Handling

Iberia Airport Services has a fleet of more than 8,500 units of equipment for providing its services and, in the past three years, it has replaced more than 60% of them.

Some 39% of the ground vehicles it uses are now electric, which has permitted it to reduce CO₂ emissions significantly. To supply these vehicles Iberia has installed electric battery recharging stations in the airports of Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao.

For Ángel Marcos, director of Iberia’s Airport Services, “2017 was a record year in numbers of passengers and aircraft served, but, in addition, we continued to advance with our commitment to the environment and we introduced modernisation projects in invoicing, baggage management, and safety which let us offer a better service to our customers.”

In addition, in 2017 Iberia’s handling division extended to other airports the best practices that it has been introducing at Madrid’s Terminal 4 in recent years:

• In Barcelona and Bilbao a baggage reconciliation service (BRS) was implemented to improve baggage management and make each piece of luggage traceable from check-in to its precise position in the baggage hold of the aircraft.
• In Barcelona, Ibiza, and Tenerife South airports, Iberia Airport Services earned ISAGO certification, IATA’s highest recognition in the area of safety, as it already has in Madrid, Majorca, and Malaga.
• In Madrid, Majorca, Tenerife South, Bilbao, Malaga, and Barcelona airports, a single-file queue management unit was installed in the check-in area to keep customers in a single line until a screen indicates the next available check-in counter, a system which shortens waiting times.

In addition, in Majorca Iberia Airport Services is developing a pilot project for digitising handling tasks based on the latest technologies and the use of mobile devices.