How we at Lufthansa Systems support our customers in times of Covid-19 (Part 2/2)

Lufthansa Systems to provide now a full remote Initial Submission Service

Despite the Covid 19 travel restrictions in March, April and May this year, Lufthansa Systems managed to successfully cutover its Slot Management Suite for their new customer airline Neos, followed by the preparation of their first Initial Submission – both fully remotely.

In part one of this blog we reported about the first-time for Lufthansa Systems ever having successfully executed a remote cutover support for Neos, an Italian leisure airline with its headquarters in Somma Lombardo and main base at Milan-Malpensa Airport.

In this second part now we will ask Yvonne Dimt, Product Expert NetLine/Sched, about how she conducted a full remote Initial Submission Service for Neos - as this service can be now provided to any airline as well.

Michael Muzik: Yvonne, after the successful remote cut-over of the Lufthansa Systems Slot Management Suite in April 2020, you also managed to support Neos with a remote Initial Submission Service only one month later. Usually, in the past, we supported airlines during their first Initial Submission always on-site. How did this work now remotely?

Yvonne Dimt: Smooth. The IATA scheduled Initial Submission deadline for the Winter Season 2020 was May 14, 2020. Mid of April, after the cut-over, Neos asked us whether we could conduct the Initial Submission remotely on their NetLine/Sched Slot Manager system, so they could focus on dealing with the Covid-19 crisis.

Michael Muzik: Can you please give us some details?

It took us altogether two days to prepare the Initial Submission for all 20 of Neos’ destination airports. In detail the handling was very comfortable for Neos: They simply provided us with a SSIM file containing their planned schedule for the Winter Season 2020 and we were able to remotely retrieve all SHL files on their NetLine/Sched Slot Manager system. As the process of preparing the Initial Submission in NetLine/Sched Slot Manager is supported by a multitude of fully and semi-automatic functions, the generation of all necessary Initial Submission Codes messages went very smoothly on our side.

Last but not least, Neos only had to check the results produced by us in their NetLine/Sched Slot Manager system and send the Initial Submission messages with one finger-click by themselves to the respective airport coordinators. Also receiving the SAL and confirming it aftermath happened as well without any issue.

Michael Muzik: This sounds really very smooth. Can we offer this Initial Submission Service now as well to other carriers?

Having this new remote experience now, we are pleased to offer also this remote Initial Submission Service to all our other customers. We are even able to provide this service to any other airline with any third party slot management system now. In case of interest, please contact us here.

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Link to Part 1