News
Air Serv Atlanta Operation
First Business Partner to Win
Delta's Traveling Football Award for Outstanding Service
ATLANTA- Delta Air Lines awarded its aviation services supplier, Air Serv Corporation, with the "Traveling Football Award" for outstanding service in connection with Air Serv's support of Delta's new operating schedule called, "Clock Work." The Award is an official NFL football with a Delta
emblem symbolizing extraordinary teamwork excellence. This honor has typically been awarded internally to Delta departments. This is the first time that an outside service supplier has been granted this award.
The award was given during Delta's World Port Briefing, which is held each week with all Delta department managers and business partners. Delta's B Concourse Director, Harry Martinez, facilitated the meeting while the Tower Manager, Lanny Pierce and Outside Service Manager, Mary Neff presented the Football to Air Serv's Regional Manager Leon Scott. "The Air Serv team came out very strong to support our new Clockwork Operation." Neff said "They really stepped up to the plate to go above and beyond in preparing for any unexpected events that might occur with this massive change in flight scheduling. The wheel chair needs were the biggest unknown factor in this change. Everything went off without a hitch."
With the major increase in flights out of Atlanta, Delta Air Lines implemented the largest flight schedule change in the history of Aviation on January 31, 2005. Typically, all of the nation's hub airports have departing and arriving banks of flights. Delta now has a more equalized departing and arrival flight schedule that operates around the clock. Because of this, Delta has coined this new flight schedule, Clock Work .
Under Clock Work, aircraft turn around time is now averaging 30 minutes. Because the ground time has been dramatically shortened, the efficiency of the services that Air Serv provides now becomes even more apparent. One of the many services Air Serv provides to Delta is wheelchair assistance. Most flights will have passengers that require wheelchair assistance. Since time is of the essence in order to turn around the aircraft for departure, the passengers must be promptly boarded, or assisted off the plane.
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Once Delta announced the Clock Work flight plan, Leon Scott, Regional Manager for Air Serv, set out to design a plan that would accommodate the thousands of passengers that require wheelchair assistance each day. The outcome of Mr. Scott's design was to create a concept called, the Clearing Team. The Clearing Team is a group of specially trained wheelchair agents who are assigned to a location within each terminal. Their role is to meet incoming flights and be available upon arrival to take the passengers off the plane who need wheelchair assistance. On average, Air Serv assists 1,300 passengers in wheelchairs a day. During the holidays that number can reach up to 4,800 passengers a day. These numbers far exceed any other airport in the nation.
Upon winning the Traveling Football Award for Outstanding Service, Mr. Scott said "Our Wheelchair Agents are usually singled out for their performance when they receive complimentary letters from passengers. However, this award and the public recognition Delta has given them means a great deal to the team." Scott went on to say, "Our Duty Managers stepped up and persevered through the many schedule changes that were made. They executed the plan to the tee and in the end it worked beautifully. We are taking our operation to a different level so we plan to have this Traveling Football land in our office on a frequent basis."
A celebratory reception is planned for all Atlanta-based Air Serv employees to hear first hand from Air Serv's Founder and Chairman, Frank Argenbright just how proud he is of their dedicated service. Argenbright is no stranger to the 330 Air Serv employees who work on any given day at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. In fact, on the morning of the Clock Work kick off, Mr. Argenbright and the entire Air Serv executive team were at the airport at 4:30 a.m. to meet and greet the incoming passengers and show management support of the Air Serv service team. Staff members helped provide wheelchair assistance and handed out $25 Target gift certificates to employees who gave 110%. One dedicated Air Serv Duty Manager, Shirley Walker, who is famous for her southern cooking, furnished a turkey dinner with all the fixings for the office staff to enjoy. Argenbright said of the impromptu dinner, "This is just the kind of family atmosphere we try to instill in all our operations. When there is a job to be done, our employees never fail to deliver the legendary service Air Serv is known for."
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