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15 Sep 2017

Curiosities about the VIP Lounges at Madrid-Barajas Airport under the management of GIS

When we spend hours inside an airport, and more specifically in one of its VIP Lounges, one may get curious regarding how some things work, where you might end up asking yourself how many passengers visit those VIP Lounges in a month, how many sandwiches are consumed or where are the menus that they offer cooked?

At GIS we have the concession to manage all of the VIP Lounges at Madrid-Barajas airport which is why we have decided to collect some curiosities and interesting facts about the airport and the VIP Lounges you can find in it, so that you can get to know a bit more of what goes on “behind the scenes”. Here they go!

How many people work in our VIP Lounges at Madrid-Barajas?

We have 130 permanent employees that can be incresed up to 150 during the summer in order to offer a quality service to all travellers.

What is the average of passengers visiting the airport’s VIP Lounges?

Depending on the lounge you will find more or less passengers. In the Cibeles VIP Lounge for example, the average in a month is approximately of 20.000 travellers, whilst in the Plaza Mayor VIP Lounge the average is 11.400.

How many sandwiches are consumed among all of the VIP Lounges operated by GIS? And which are the most desired meals? 

Although the number will vary from one day to another, the daily consumption of sandwhiches is between 400 and 700. Regarding the rest of the meals offered, the most desired ones on a daily basis are gazpacho, pumpkin soup, squid stew, lentil soup or cod pie among others.

Where is the food offered in Madrid-Barajas airport VIP Lounges cooked? And what changes have been introduced in the kitchen since the new concession with GIS?

Menus are cooked in the Cibeles kitchen where, as a relevant fact, renowned chef Andreu Genestra has just created a new special menu for our VIP Lounges that we will very soon start to offer. Our classic Food & Beverages menu has also grown to offer many more products and better quality than a while back.

What other improvements have we implemented from GIS with the new concession in the airport?

Currently we have 9 supervisors who control daily our VIP Lounges at Madrid-Barajas airport, 6 more employees in charge than in the previous concession. Furthermore and in order to motivate our staff, we have created a recognition program to choose the Employee of the Month. As an interesting fact for travellers, we have also increased the number of amenities for showers in VIP Lounges.

What are our goals for the VIP Lounges at Madrid-Barajas airport? 

Our main goal is to meet passengers’ expectations in every service. We currently have a satisfaction rate of 3.9 above 5 and our goal is to keep on improving to achieve excellence. During our first month we received 44 congratulations from our travellers, a much higher feedback than to the one received in the past 2 or 3 years.

07 Sep 2017

Sònia Graupera explains her experiences by using GIS Airport Services

Every day thousands of travellers come and go from airports all over the world. Some of them, and mainly those who are frequent travellers, know that having access to a VIP Lounge inside airports is one of the best options to be comfortable whilst waiting to board their next flight.

Sònia Graupera, freelance travel consultant based in Barcelona knows perfectly well what we’re talking about. Her specialty: unique trips to the most exclusive destinations around the globe. Sònia, as a frequent traveller has a first-hand knowledge regarding all the  facilities and amenities that airports’ VIP services offer, and as she claims, “accessing these services is easy and at any travellers reach”.

At GIS, as we have already explained in other occasions we coordinate and manage VIP Lounges at airports being the  Barcelona – El Prat airport the first one who enabled us to embark on this adventure back in 2009.

Sònia is one of the frequent ttravellers who accesses the VIP Lounge at Barcelona airport, who aside from benefitting from some of our services through Premium Traveller our online platform, she’s catalogued the VIP Lounge “Pau Casals” in Barcelona’s airport as one of her best experiences among all the airports she has visited, hence she shared her experience talking about the quality and high standards of our services offering.

Recently Sònia Graupera reached out to us to tell us her impressions regarding the VIP facilities that we offer to our travellers. As Graupera explains, one of the best experiences that she has at Barcelona’s and Madrid’s airport is the moment when she enters in the VIP Lounges that both airports have: “It is the place where i can find a moment for myself and mentally get some rest, it’s my “me time” while on-the-go.”

Followed by:

“When I enter the airport’s VIP Lounges that’s when my moment begins. I look for one of the many sockets to plug and charge me iPhone, drink some water or tea and if I feel like it, get some food too – although I don’t usually eat a lot when I fly. It goes without saying that the puff pasties offered in these VIP Lounges are a big temptation for those who have a sweet tooth like I do, but also the salty food offering is so varied. Passengers here can choose from salads or pasta, as well as charcuterie or cheese snacks. You can also find warm dishes like quiche or a slice of pizza. And last but not least, a wide wine selection to choose from.”

“Once my iPhone is fully charged and I’ve made myself a drink, it is time for me to sit in one of the comfy couches with views to the terminal’s main hall and disconnect watching the come and go of passengers. Here is where I find my moment of peace and relax whilst beginning the start of my trip.”

Sònia, just like many other passengers, is a witness of the services that we offer in VIP airport Lounges and that at GIS we fully coordinate and manage.

So what about you? Would you like to live the same experience? Visit one of our VIP Lounges and we promise that we experience will be very rewarding.

Look up the airport of your next destination here and choose among our many VIP Lounges now!

27 Aug 2017

The partnership between GIS and Vueling

The partnership between GIS and IAG Group began, as we explained in this previous post back when at GIS we started to introduce ourselves in the management of VIP lounges at airports in collaboration with airlines.

Aside from our long-term collaboration in the management of Iberia’s different VIP lounges in the airports of Barcelona, Madrid-Barajas and Mexico D.F., Paris-Orly and Frankfurt we expanded our partnership to one of their low cost airlines “Vueling”, taking the relationship between GIS and Iberia to another level and becoming their partner for the development of Premium services.

Even though Vueling classifies as a low cost airline the reality is that many of the passengers that fly on board are actually business travellers flying for work reasons. Bearing this in mind and knowing that they probably spent quite a lot of time at airports, we decided together with Vueling to expand the airline’s service offering. This meant that now Vueling had the possibility of offering to every one of their passengers the option of booking their VIP services, making them accessible to any traveller both in business and tourist class.

With this, now passengers not only have quality and comfortable amenities, but they can now benefit from this new offering which Vueling together with GIS have launched, leading to a relevant differentiation of Vueling among it’s competitors by offering exclusive services in the “low cost range” of airlines who in general, don’t do so.

Currently any traveler flying with Vueling who wishes to acces a VIP lounge in any of the selected airports where the airline operates, now has the opportunity to do so thanks to GIS – as experts in the creation and management of VIP services for airlines and airports – through Premium Traveller, where we make sure everyone can book their services.

Furthermore, for those passengers who request it we also have available Vueling’s loyalty Program “Vueling Pass“, a rechargeable card that enables the passenger to access up to 10 times per purchase to any VIP Lounge where Vueling together with GIS have an agreement with the airport or the lounge operator if it’s the case. This card will also allow them to access to Priority Boarding’s and Fast Lane.

Where can you get a Vueling Pass card?

Any traveller can request it in any of the following:

What other benefits does Vueling Pass offer?

Together with Premium Traveller, Vueling offers the following benefits:

Had you already heard of all of these Vueling services? If you are one of those travellers who flies often with the airline, you can now think about it and benefit from all that we are offering!

16 Aug 2017

Airports and Asian Airlines win the podium again after being reviewed as the best in the world

Airlines and airports are very often under people’s eye in order to evaluate whether their infrastructure, efficiency and services meet passengers’ expectations. The evaluation of which meets their needs better is something very common and like in every other sector, it is necessary for airports to renew themselves and innovate to offer their best to every traveller.

Skytrax, a website that audits and compares the quality of the different airports and airlines around the world, recently launched a ranking based on the opinion of more than 19 million travellers in order to establish which long-flight airlines position at the top of the podium worldwide.

As the Spanish diary Expansión explains in this article, Asian airlines lead the list, where Qatar Airways win the Gold in Skytrax’ ranking, followed by Singapore airlines and ANA ALL Nippon airways respectively.

The amount of Asian airlines in this ranking is indisputable. Among the first 10 airlines only one European airline has managed to be among the top 10: Lufthansa, the german airline ranked in the 7th position. Regarding Spanish airlines, Iberia is the first airline in the ranking occupying the 42nd position out of the 100 best airlines.

But not only airlines are exposed to rankings, airports are also evaluated and so far in 2017, we see a pattern repeat: the Singapore Changi International Airport is considered five years in a row as the best  airport in the world according to the ranking by Skytrax. Both for its architecture as for the availability of shops and services it offers, its facilities have stolen many hearts.

The airport believes strongly in the idea of constantly innovating and improving, the reason for which they now have embarked on a new project, as this article in the Expansión newspaper. The construction of “Jewel”, a project worth 1.518 million euros consist in the building of a glass and steel dome that will enable to place the proximity train inside Terminal 1. Inside the dome a magical space will be created with several bridges for passengers to cross next to a 40 metre-high waterfall , a garden 5 stories high and the recreation of a forest or jungle among many others elements.

With this ambitious project Changi will then become a very strong rival for the rest of airports planning on becoming number one in the ranking, positioning as the best airline or airport in the world. To sum up, hard work on a day-to-day basis, innovation and renewing yourself is definitely a key factor for success.

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15 Aug 2017

The Mobile World Congress, a challenge and successful case study for GIS

Barcelona is one of Spain’s cities where mosts congress, conventions, festivals and events are held. One of the most important international events that take place and that greater impact have of the city is the Mobile World Congress, the biggest meeting in the world focused on the mobile industry and new technologies.

The MWC brings together fot the occasion thousands of people from all over the world. As a result, the number of travellers who meet in airports increases considerably, and more so in El Prat – Barcelona Airport.

Many of the assistants of the MobileWorld Congress are visitors for which GIS provides our services, especially with our VIP Lounges. For this reason, the quality levels and operation management are set to high standars previously and during the event. Because we know many of our clients are frequent business travellers who are already familiar with VIP Lounges areas and services offered at airports, at GIS we work at 200% to make every service meet their expectations.

During the MWC the volume of passengers in our VIP Lounges has a notable increase. For this first half of the year 2017 we have already doubled the number of passengers who have visited our rooms compared to a normal day at the airport. From 2000 passengers daily to more than 5500! An increase of 10% of clients compared to 2016.

To keep up the quality level of our services in such a particular time, at GIS we have planned to detail how to provide service to our clients the best way possible by offering the character and VIP advantages in every service, which is why we enabled a versatile lounge area annex to our VIP Lounges to expand the space and confort of our rooms, organizing more than 55 Meet & Greet services in less than 48 hours and as a curiosity … serving more than 13 thousand croissants, 11 thousand pain au chocolate and pastries, and 6 thousands muffins!

As you can see the Mobile World Congress is a huge event for the city, Barcelona’s airport and for GIS a successful case study. Thanks to our many years of experience and our history as partners providing VIP services we continue to meet our client’s expectations, working hard year after year to reach our goal: excellence in the quality of every service we offer.

11 Jul 2017

Fabiano Fontenelle explains the advantages that VIP services provide in the airport environment

Fabiano is the Commercial Director of GIS. More than 8 years of experience on the development of VIP and business services at airports with an extensive knowledge of the airport services industry.

1. Each time more and more airports and airlines are tending to outsource their premium services and VIP LOUNGES to specialized companies. Why do you think this is becoming the trend and what would you say are its’ main benefits?

I believe it’s the combination of many factors that is leading the airlines and the airports to outsource their premium services but for sure the economic and quality aspects are especially relevant.

Specialized companies like GIS, are able to deliver excellent services at very competitive rates helping to increase revenue (or reduce costs) without detriment of quality standards and brand experience through strategy alignment.

The partnership with a trusted operator allows the airlines and airports to focus on their core business while helping to enhance competitiveness and passenger experience.

2. Are VIP services inside airports only available for First Class or Business Class passengers?

No, fortunately not anymore. Most of the VIP services that used to be exclusively within reach of top-tier passengers are now available to anyone who wishes to add extra comfort to their trip, and I may say there is a strong demand for it.
Airports have become a stressful environment and the search for ways to make them friendlier is leading to the design of a wide range of services focused on the passenger experience.

3. Premium services are perfect for business trips. What services can business travellers find in order to make a better use of their time in airports and be efficient during their layovers?

Efficiency is the key concept and there are services that can help them achieve it in every situation. Meeting rooms inside the terminal, executive lounges with business facilities or even meet & greet services to speed up clearance procedures are some of the current services available in every major airport.

4. For those who prefer to have a few hours rest whilst waiting to board their next flight, what exclusive services do you offer? 

We have created a product specially designed for longer stays at the airport. The Air Rooms concept is a small hotel located inside the terminals which offers to the client the alternative of using its comfortable rooms according to their needs. There are three basic types of use:

  • Shower-at-arrival – For a quick refresh after a long flight or before a meeting
  • Day-use – 3h or 6h packages to rest during the day
  • Overnight – for those who prefer to sleep at the airport

5. Why do you think Air Rooms are one of the best options for those tourists who need to be near the airport?

Since our rooms are located inside the airports, it’s very safe and easy to access and our clients have full control of their time. Moreover, not worrying about transfer shuttle to nearby hotels or city centre represents time and money saving.

6. Premium Traveller by GIS currently manages several Air Rooms in Barcelona and Madrid’s airport, and very soon will do so too in Rome. Would you like to expand this project in the future to other international airports too?

GIS currently manages the Barcelona Airport Air Rooms with 10 resting units and 19 at the Madrid Barajas’, in which we also have an arrivals lounge.
As part of our internationalization process, in the second semester of 2017 we’ll inaugurate our new Air Rooms in Rome Fiumicino with 33 resting units and a Arrivals lounge.
Other European airports have showed interest in our model and we expect to announce new openings soon.

7. Is there any existing platform that offers full premium and quality services at airports? 

In our e-commerce platform our clients can book a variety of premium airport services in more than 45 airports, some of them directly operated by us also services provided by our partners.