Groundforce, born out of the Portuguese Handling company which has more than 60 years’ experience in ground handling, has selected BagAssist and BagAutorush for use in Portuguese airports. This strategic choice will help support Groundforce build a professional and high quality service for its handled airlines and strengthen its market leading position. The Agreement between Groundforce and SkyAssist, the owners of BagAssist and BagAutorush was signed recently and deployment will take place over the coming months.

SkyAssist, the Belgian provider of advanced software for the Air Transportation Industry, has welcomed a new customer, Groundforce for its product suite BagAssist.

Groundforce and Sky Assist have entered an agreement for the implementation of the state-of-the-art, web based, thin client, automated baggage handling software solution BagAssist for Lost & Found Departments and BagAutorush for Baggage Control Departments.

The BagAssist suite of products, unique in the market place, simplifies daily tasks to improve productivity. It is flexible and raises service quality for all handled airlines and passengers.

Baggage handling has generally been viewed as an end-of-chain, cost-only department but with independent handling companies taking an ever increasing share of the baggage handling market, it has become crucial for these companies to differentiate themselves from competitors by delivering outstanding quality service to passengers and raising quality standards at a time when they are addressing greater airport security requirements.

The selection and deployment of BagAssist and BagAutorush by Groundforce management is a strategic decision that will not only enable delivery of improved services but will deliver a positive return on investment.

BagAssist manages Lost and Found baggage processes as well as passenger status enquiries. It increases ground staff productivity and helps drive down unit costs. BagAssist delivers improved service quality to handled airlines and passengers looking to be reunited with their mishandled baggage as soon as possible.

Every day, thousands of passenger bags are mishandled by the airline industry and their owners want to be reunited with their bags quickly and expect their problems to be addressed as efficiently as possible, whether by airport authorities, ground handlers or airline representatives. To recover passenger loyalty at this difficult time it is crucial that resources work rapidly and in a flexible way, in order to meet passenger demands.

BagAssist, deployable as a web-based application, is a great leap forward in the area of mishandled baggage and in addition to increasing ground staff productivity it delivers real-time management information and helps reduce the costs associated with traditional telecommunication networks.

BagAssist, SkyAssist’s vanguard solution is integrated with SITA’s WorldTracerä, the worldwide standard for the tracing and recovery of lost luggage and automates processes for the follow-up of lost and found baggage. BagAssist automatically produces all the required documents for both passengers and agents and manages all information relating to flights, handling contracts, and delivery agreements, etc.

With its intuitive, interactive and friendly graphical user interface working from an Internet browser, it is very easy to learn and provides immediate access to a centralized database.

“Thanks to BagAssist, we now offer handling companies, airports and airlines a baggage solution based on their current needs and processes,” explains Luc Trentels, Founder and General Manager of SkyAssist. “Our open systems approach, through the internet, and our philosophy that aims for simplicity and integration, allows our customers to save on the high costs of developing tools themselves and using traditional networks. The ease of use of BagAssist also reduces the learning process for ground staff while delivering an immediate increase in productivity. We are confident that these benefits will ensure many other companies in the industry will soon join our customer community.”