Ekaterinburg’s showcase Koltsovo International Airport – Russia’s largest regional airport with a capacity of eight million passengers – is deploying the SITA WorkBridge Resource Management System this month as the airport seeks to meet its ambitious expansion targets.

Up to 700 employees will be using the SITA WorkBridge Resource Management System in Cyrillic text for planning and rostering as the airport phases out manual and paper-based processes for ground handling, passenger services and security. In addition to allocating tasks and shifts to employees, Koltsovo will also use fixed resource management functionality to optimize aircraft stands and allocation of boarding gates and check-in counters.

This is SITA’s first deployment of the system in Eastern Europe and Russia since WorkBridge A/S, a leader in the field of mobile resource management solutions for the air transport industry, became part of its Airport Solution Line last year. The SITA WorkBridge solution portfolio is designed to improve planning, operational efficiency, staff management and customer service for ground handling management at airports.

Eugeny Chudnovsky, CEO, Koltsovo International Airport, said: “The key to success in ground handling is good planning.  The SITA WorkBridge Resource Management System will increase our productivity and reduce our costs by ensuring the timely and effective allocation of the required resources on both land and air sides of the airport. This is a ten year agreement so we see a bright future for this solution at the heart of our ground operations as we upgrade our systems.”

Koltsovo International Airport is well on its way to becoming an important regional hub. It handled 2.75 million passengers in 2010 and expects 3.3 million in 2011. When the new cargo terminal is complete, the airport will rank in the top five airports for cargo in Russia.

Boris Padovan, SITA Regional Vice President for Eastern and Central Europe, said: “Most airport employees do not work from a fixed location any more. They can be moving between planes, between hangars or between boarding gates. Pro-active planning and rostering is the core of the SITA WorkBridge Resource Management System and we are very pleased with this first deployment in the region.”