RFID Technology Viewed from an Airline's Angle

I started my professional life within Air France, Cargo division. I was in charge of Supply Chain Management issues related to Freight aspects and Hub/flows complexities.

I was involved to create together with the Marketing department the 4 Cargo products (Cohesion, Equation, Dimension and Variation) at this time used and explored only by Air France Cargo and today commercialised by all Cargo airlines member of Skyteam Alliance.

 

I moved afterwards to the "Passenger" side, to Air France's Hub based at Charles De Gaulle Airport and I was in charge of a business unit within the transfer department, especially related to short connections.

 

March 2005, I was selected together with a small group of managers to join KLM Headquarters Amsterdam in order to work on 'indirect synergies" after the merge between Air France and KLM. This group is know from both Corporate-AF and KLM- by AF-KLM Management Exchange Program and working under the umbrella of the holding Air France-KLM.

My first job within KLM-Netherlands was Program Manager for a program running between KLM and Schiphol airport related to Baggage development systems based on Innovation (RFID technology, Storage system, etc.) and Robotisation (Robots and Automated handling areas).

Since September 2006, I am in charge of E-Business and Innovation for KLM worldwide from Operational side. One of my main focus is to align policies between Air France and KLM for our Common stations.

The Group is the world leader in terms of international passenger traffic1; it ranks second worldwide for its cargo activities1 (not including integrators) and is one of the world's major maintenance service providers.

1 (source IATA 2003)

The Group counts more than 100,000 employees throughout the world.

Passenger transport is the Group's main business, accounting for 79% of turnover (2005-06 financial year), with 70 million passengers carried (2005-06 financial year), a fleet in operation of 565 aircraft on 31 March 2006 (including 185 dedicated to regional routes), and 247 destinations worldwide.

The Group structure is simple: a holding company with two airline subsidiaries. This "one group, two airlines" structure is designed to free up the full range of synergies generated by the complementarities between the two carriers.