Baltic Ground Services (BGS), an international provider of ground handling and into-plane fuelling services, has announced the decision to appoint its long-standing Chief Production Manager Linas Geguzis as the new CEO of Baltic Ground Services Poland. With the new leader in the forefront the Poland-based company is planning to significantly expand the scope of its products and services as well as extend the list of its clients by increasing the number of flights served by 40% in 2014.
Successfully operating since 2010, today BGS serves Lufthansa, Aeroflot, Aer Lingus and other major carriers in the Polish Warsaw, Katowice and Krakow airports.
‘Normally it takes up to four years for a new company to establish itself in the passenger and ground handling segment, whilst attracting larger clients requires no less than three-to-four years of successful presence in the market. In Poland we have managed to achieve the latter in as little as two years’ time. Now, when the initial stage of development is over, we are planning to shift our focus towards increasing the spectrum of our products and services. We expect that this year the company will serve over one and a half thousand of flights. However, our plans for the upcoming year are even more ambitious and we are planning to bring that number up by another thousand,’ said the new CEO of Baltic Ground Services Poland Linas Geguzis.
According to L.Geguzis, currently the air transportation market and in Poland is rapidly growing. In terms of the local passenger flow, the country has already surpassed the pre-recession level with almost 25 million of air passengers per year. It is expected that in less than 10 years’ time this number will climb over 40 million.
‘Whilst operating in the three largest Polish airports we are planning to serve over 160 thousand of passengers this year alone. Based on the market perspectives, especially in the Warsaw airport, next year we will continue to focus on the provision of ground handling, fuelling and catering services. Moreover, this year we have paid considerable attention to the improvement of our internal processes and HR optimization. This has lead us to a 30% decrease in operational costs. Therefore, we are anticipating a significant increase in BGS revenue,’ commented L. Geguzis.
Meanwhile, there is an increasing presence of low-cost carriers in Poland. Experts point out that already today almost 50% of all international flights to/from Poland are operated by budget airlines. There are some suggestive evidence that such carriers will continue to increase their market presence in the country as one of the largest low cost operator has opened its second base in the Krakow International earlier this year.
‘An active growth in the Polish air transportation market is directly related to the intensifying low-cost carrier activity. Strategically, we are prepared to cater for the needs of such airlines with a special package of solutions to suit budget air transportation service providers. For instance, recently Baltic Ground Services has introduced its own web-based departure control system which is designed to facilitate the complex proccesses of check-in, boarding and baggage registration. As it is extremely low-weight and mobile, the new Avia DCS is particularly suitable for low cost and charter carriers as not only does it facilitate the passenger chek-in procedure but also helps to significantly reduce airline costs. Furthermore, later this year the company will start using its newly developed ecologic de-icing fluid, which will reduce the negative effects to the environment and thus appeal to nature-conscious clients, ‘ informed Linas Geguzis.