SubscribeFast response and technical expertise have won ServiceTec Airport Services International a three year extension to its IT support contract with Terminal One Group Association (TOGA) at JFK international airport.
The last 9 months have seen ServiceTec consistently beat its service level agreement of a 2 hour response, by averaging less than10 minutes for a complete restore.
ServiceTec provides support for the Multi-User System Environment (MUSE) , boarding pass and baggage tag printers, reporting directly to the Terminal One Group Association. In addition, the company has worked closely with ARINC to upgrade the terminal's MUSE software. The smooth upgrade to iMUSE and the close relationship between the two companies were additional factors in helping ServiceTec to secure the contract.
Felix Fan, Manager of Information Technology for TOGA commented: "ServiceTec has proved time and again that they can deliver support in a timely fashion and have acted as my key aide in the upgrade to iMUSE. We see the company as a long-term partner with Terminal One, the future development of IT and security systems will be further enabled by ServiceTec's support.
"The migration required a lot of management and communication between all the parties involved, which included the software provider and the airlines themselves. ServiceTec was able to use information such as flight plans to enable us to plan and cut down each segment for the upgrade, providing additional data circuits and allowing us to minimise disruption to the airlines. I have never experienced a transition that ran so seamlessly. The few problems we ran in to during testing phase were resolved very quickly, if I had to rate this migration out of ten, I would say this had to be nine!"
MUSE is core to the successful operation of the terminal as it allows many airlines to share the same gates and desks through a common workstation, maximizing airport operations efficiency. iMUSE offers airports greater flexibility, it allows MUSE to be viewed in a browser-based version that supports both IP and legacy systems, using either desktop or handheld terminals.
Dave Kelly, Vice President of Sales, ServiceTec has overseen a number of MUSE upgrades and believes that it brings many benefits:
"We would expect that many airports with existing MUSE systems will be considering upgrading to the internet enabled version, as it rationalises the infrastructure and is scalable. It is vital in an airport environment that it is business as usual during the upgrade, user support is very important element in this. "I would advise other airports to plan carefully, should they consider the transition. Communication with all groups concerned is key, as is running the project segment by segment; some airlines are busier or quieter then others at certain times of the day, finding out when these are considerably helps to minimise any potential disruption."
ServiceTec supports some 1,000 items of MUSE equipment at JFK Terminal One. Since it was opened in June 1998 ServiceTec has delivered on-site during 16 hours each day, with the remaining period covered by a comprehensive on-call system.
ServiceTec will be exhibiting at the forthcoming passenger Terminal Expo in Cologne (22nd - 24th February). Visit them at stand 3068.
