On a single day this spring, 275 ground support vehicles went operational at Palma de Mallorca Airport (PMI), 185 of them baggage carts, and Wings Handling’s entire customer fleet changed over at once, ahead of the operation’s busiest weeks.
The stakes were higher than a routine fleet swap. Wings Handling runs one of the strongest operations in Eurowings’ route network, and PMI is a base where the ground support has to match the standard already set in the air, not just keep pace with it.
That single day was also the product of months the two companies had spent building the underlying model together, which laid the foundations for the trust and collaboration that carried through the rest of the season.
It starts with knowing exactly where the fleet stands. HiSERV runs full fleet management for Wings Handling at PMI, with the fleet connected to HiSERV’s SmartFLEET system for customised analytics on usage and status. Every vehicle is tracked, including the baggage carts that make up the bulk of the fleet, with the system flagging maintenance needs before they turn into downtime. That same visibility gave both teams what they needed to plan a single-day, 275-unit changeover with confidence.
Twice a year, that picture feeds a joint optimisation round between HiSERV and Wings Handling, adjusting fleet composition and process ahead of the season to come. The swap was the biggest single output of that rhythm, but not the only one: HiSERV has also engineered bespoke manufacturer solutions for Wings Handling’s operation, built for Mallorca’s climate and within regulatory limits.
Behind it all sits a commitment that holds regardless of season: HiSERV guarantees a defined level of availability, matched to Wings Handling’s handling standards and flight schedule. When conditions are hardest to plan for — unplanned vehicle downtime, or the peak weeks of summer — HiSERV flies its own mechanics in on demand to get vehicles back in service fast.
As the winter flight schedule takes effect at the end of October, that is the season HiSERV and Wings Handling are closing out: their first full one together, with more than 7,000 flights supported and a positive contribution to departure punctuality. Both companies share an interest in what could come next: autonomous driving and exoskeleton applications for ground operations, technology that goes well beyond the GSE rental relationship.
The fleet that rolled onto the apron on that day in May is still out there today, having just worked through the toughest months of the year — for one of the strongest operations in Eurowings’ network, running on a ground support model built specifically to keep pace with it.
This article was originally published by HiSERV.
