Leoka Engineering<\/a>\u00a0has been responsible for OR Tambo\u2019s baggage handling since August 2018. It was then, as a young project management and engineering business (Leoka started operating in 2016), that it took over the contract from the large multinational companies that had run it before. The transition from the previous operators to Leoka was smooth and, in the years since, luggage handling at the airport has steadily improved.<\/p>\n\u201cWe knew that we had big shoes to fill, and that it was important that we form close relationships with our various stakeholders, the airlines in particular, in order to secure their trust,\u201d Moja explains. \u201cOur senior management\u2019s extensive experience counted in our favour, but it was the fact that we understood our mandate \u2013 to get bags to their destinations whatever it takes \u2013 that helped us to win our stakeholders\u2019 confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leoka prides itself on its time management skills, which are obviously critical to the aviation industry, as well as its ability to put urgent and effective contingencies in place. If an issue occurs, the team knows that everything still has to proceed seamlessly. Transparency and integrity are other key criteria for Leoka\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in being open and honest about any challenges that arise, and in putting our heads together with all stakeholders to ensure that the situation is resolved quickly,\u201d he says. \u201cThis approach has helped us to navigate many peak holiday seasons, some of which were record-breaking in terms of the airport\u2019s baggage handling requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leoka has helped to address baggage theft at the airport, too. The team understands that they are ambassadors for the Johannesburg and South Africa: if a new arrival\u2019s luggage goes missing, it\u2019s likely to negatively affect their experience of both. By taking this responsibility on board, Leoka has helped to reduce theft and improve the airport\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n
Covid, however, was a serious knock. Leoka went from having 90 employees on the ground handling a million pieces of luggage a month, to just 12 employees handling 10,000 bags, primarily for repatriation flights. The fact that the company did not fold, but managed to sustain this enormous blow, was testament to all the measures that it had put in place since first winning the contract three years ago.<\/p>\n
Today, as travel slowly starts to resume, Leoka is building up its team once again. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased that we\u2019ve had to rehire as demand has improved,\u201d says Moja. \u201cWe have 51 people on the ground now and are averaging about 180,000 bags a month since the beginning of the year. It\u2019s nowhere near where it was, but it\u2019s the start of this critical recovery.\u201d Leoka is also looking to other airports locally and regionally where its expertise might be required. \u201cOR Tambo is the gateway not only to South Africa, but also to Africa,\u201d Moja adds, \u201cand with the wealth of experience we have gained here, we know that we have valuable insight and support to offer elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: https:\/\/engafrica.co.za\/covid-decimated-travel-heres-how-one-critical-supplier-survived\/?fbclid=IwAR1umxJNJXisxQ73bm5nmgUUmtJXHT1JQsIzRzmsPSpJUKmeZ1n7tZk03XQ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the 2019 and 2020 financial year, OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg welcomed 11\u00a0million domestic travellers and 9\u00a0million international travellers, according to the airport\u2019s official statistics. With the advent of Covid, these figures were decimated: down to 3\u00a0million for the former and 600,000 for the latter. Inevitably, the airport\u2019s suppliers were severely affected. \u201cPrior to Covid, we moved about a million pieces of luggage through OR Tambo every month,\u201d says Ratau Moja, the Operations Manager for Aviation at Leoka, the company tasked with handling luggage at OR Tambo. \u201cBy April 2020, when South Africa was in the throes of its first severe lockdown, that number had dropped to barely 10,000 pieces of luggage a month. The airport was like a ghost town.\u201d Leoka Engineering\u00a0has been responsible for OR Tambo\u2019s baggage handling since August 2018. It was then, as a young project management and engineering business (Leoka started operating in 2016), that it took over the contract from the large multinational companies that had run it before. The transition from the previous operators to Leoka was smooth and, in the years since, luggage handling at the airport has steadily improved. \u201cWe knew that we had big shoes to fill, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mavro.co.za\/leoka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}