2011 rushed by at the speed of light and, honestly, we wear sackcloth and ashes for rather neglecting this blog. It has been quite a while since our last blog post. To make up for this and with this year drawing to a close, this blog post is meant to update you on the main projects of Airport Excellence during 2011.     TMT The Mobile Terminal® First of all, we dedicated most of our time to supporting TMT The Mobile Terminal® (link zu website) , who provides airports and airlines with a novel type of mobile and re-usable airport terminals. TMT has made a crucial step forward in 2011 with the installation of its first TMT terminal at Geneva International Airport (GVA) in Switzerland, who bought the terminal at the end of 2010. The terminal officially and successfully went into operation on February 9 which was celebrated with a press conference on site inside the TMT terminal two days later. Alongside the whole team of TMT The Mobile Terminal® and ourselves - who organized the event - Robert Deillon, General Director of GVA, and Jean-Luc Portier, Head of GVA Passenger Management, were present to explain the product and GVA's motivation to buy it to the media. According to Deillon finding a product that fulfilled all their needs sometimes felt like the "quadrature of the circle, but TMT managed to do it! We've been searching for such a solution for years."
As Geneva needs the terminal only during the winter season as a back-up solution for the droves of winter tourists using the airport as a gate to the ski resorts in the Swiss and French Alps, it had been disassembled for the summer at the beginning of May. Only recently, on November 25 and in time for the winter season of 2011/12, the terminal was reinstalled and went into operation at GVA again. It can be visited there until the end of the season.     Salzburg Airport (SZG)Airport Excellence was essentially involved in the business planning of Salzburg Airport's future development. SZG is planning to open up new paths in the future and to widen its field of activity and competencies. We were asked to help develop several ideas and options the airport could use to put this future vision into reality.    Munich Airport (MUC)
Next year, Quito in Ecuador will open up its new airport. Since November, Max is spending two weeks there every two months as support of MUC's team who are preparing and planning the operational readiness of the airport. This project will continue for AE until the actual opening of the airport in 2012. Max isn't just impressed by the airport but also by Ecuador's beautiful landscape and the tasty food there. No need to mention that he also tried roasted guinea pig, a local specialty that might seem somewhat strange to European taste buds as the hairy little fellow is rather perceived as a pet than as a dish over here.     UkraineThe sharing of knowledge is part and parcel of the Airport Excellence philosophy. Max has been hired as an airport expert by universities and academies for years now. This year he held a training session about "The Airport Business" at the Munich Airport Academy, explaining to some of Munich International Airport's employees the complex economic interrelationships and challenges that can be found at an airport. As the training session was met with a lot of positive feedback, it will be held again next year.
In February, Max attended the annual Airport Economic and Finance Symposium at the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom where he was again invited to hold his lecture on the "Relationship between Aviation and Non-Aviation Revenues". Moreover, the University of Westminster asked him to hold the same lecture again in July, this time exclusively for representatives of the Nigerian Aviation Authority.
Altogether we are very content with our year of 2011 and are looking forward to the new missions and challenges awaiting us in 2012. Next year we plan to launch our own series of training workshops that will be held in our beautiful hometown of Barcelona. Stay tuned for more information here.
Last but not least, we wish you and your loved ones, staff and colleagues happy holidays and a prosperous new year 2012!