Christian Onselaere, CEO ADB Safegate: “Our combined portfolio creates a more comprehensive range of solutions and superior service for customers. We are striving to become a truly global company, using existing strong footholds, to develop significantly in high-growth regions.”
In March it was announced that ADB Group and Safegate Group were uniting to form ADB Safegate. The mission is to provide customers with accelerated airport performance all the way from approach to departure, as Christian Onselaere, CEO ADB Safegate, explained to Ross Falconer.
As passenger numbers grow, airports need to increase throughput and safety, and do so in the most efficient way possible. The unified ADB Safegate applies an operational view to make the different parts of the airport work together seamlessly.
“The uniqueness of our offer lies in our coverage of the gate, the airfield and the ATC, with appropriate state-of-the-art solutions and integration,” says Christian Onselaere, CEO ADB Safegate. “We will retain a sharp focus on the airside while addressing an end-to-end strategy from approach to departure. We have supported major airports around the world in finding solutions to their challenges in the most cost-effective and sustainable way.”
Indeed, ADB Safegate serves over 2,000 airports worldwide, including major European hubs like London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Paris CDG and Munich. A recent project in Lahore took an operational view to weather-proof the airport, significantly increasing the number of aircraft movements in low visibility.
The company is also supporting Abu Dhabi International Airport as it embarks on one of its most ambitious expansion projects. “We help the airport create additional capacity to manage traffic growth at its existing terminals, while maintaining world-class standards of airside safety and compliance,” Onselaere explains. “After a survey, ADB Safegate is redesigning the existing airside infrastructure and optimising the airport’s AGL systems, including lighting, power, control, and surface guidance systems. As the main contractor, we are responsible for design, construction, operation and maintenance of AGL works and service.”
Of course, every airport is different and one solution will not fit all. This means integrated solutions must be tailored to each airport’s demands, environment and business goals. “Existing infrastructure often contains hidden and unused capacity that can be released with a holistic view of the airport, and therefore we apply an advisory, consultative approach to create the right solution and propose a cost-effective way to resolve the airport’s most pressing challenges,” Onselaere notes.
This can encompass every aspect of air traffic control and guidance, from approach, runway and taxiway lighting to tower-based traffic control systems, to intelligent gate and docking automation. The aim is always the same – to use an operational view and optimise the operational procedures, and thereby airport performance.
Building predictability into the system is key to this goal of improving airport performance. “Because of the unpredictability and inter-dependencies of the systems and processes involved, most of the process owners add a buffer of extra time for eventualities outside of their control. All of these buffers in the chain of events add up and create poor performance,” Onselaere adds. “One way to reduce added and costly buffers is to incorporate predictability into the system. By interchanging data of estimate, target and actual times between the sequential and the parallel operational steps, there will be fewer unknowns to buffer for. This is one of the cornerstones of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) and here our advanced docking systems can play an important role in providing data to operational personnel, and contribute to major cost savings. We see an interesting future for data harvesting and visualisation in our industry.”
Our discussion with ADB Safegate provides just a few compelling insights into how airports can seize opportunities to enhance operational performance around the key pillars of safety, efficiency and sustainability. A new era of intelligent, highly integrated airport operations truly has the potential to raise performance across the airfield, gate and tower.
“Beyond 2016, our strategic focus will be securing our position as a real partner for airports, from the airfield to the tower and gate, and building on our integrated solutions and facilities management capabilities,” Onselaere concludes. “We will also leverage our R&D resources across combined areas of expertise to drive innovation in product and system development, to capture new opportunities and investments being made to streamline traffic management in the world’s biggest airspaces.”
