Newspapers / Piedmont Aviation Employee Newsletter / Feb. 1, 1987, edition 1 / Page 6
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PI buys HQ, plans to expand in W-S Piedmont has made a series of real estate transactions that will enable us to expand in Winston-Salem and add about 300 jobs in 1988 in the community. Chairman Bill Howard made the transactions public January 12 following a meeting of Piedmont's board of directors. The transactions include: • The purchase of our seven-story corporate headquarters building. One Piedmont Plaza, and the adjacent seven-story office building, TWo Piedmont Plaza, as well as a 797-space parking deck and additional parking lots. The property was purchased from First Associates, a partnership in Winston-Salem, from whom Piedmont has been leasing One Piedmont Plaza. • First Associates has purchased 17.35 acres from Piedmont in order to develop property near our Winston-Salem reservations center on Griffith Road. The transaction includes the center which we now lease from First Associ ates. First Associates will construct a 110,000- square-foot office building and parking deck on a portion of the property and lease a sub stantial portion of the building to us. • The construction of a three-story addition to our reservations computer center at Madison I’ark. The 68,280-square-foot building will be constructed by The Shelton Companies, in addition to a new parking deck at Madison Park. We will lease this building from The Shelton Companies. "We’re very excited about the new reservations support building,” Don Shanks, vice president- customer relations, said. "It will accommodate support areas for reservations and, at the same time, free-up agent positions at all six of our res ervations centers, all at a considerable cost sav ings for us." When the building opens late this year, about 1,000 employees in international, rates, customer service, queues, frequent flyer, ticket-by-mail, groups and tours, schedule change, and the CRC departments will work in the new facility. Most of these departments are currently located at Madi son Park. "One of the reasons for moving these depart ments from Madison Park is that the space is needed by revenue accounting," Leonard Martin, senior vice president-passenger services, said. Revenue accounting has grown from 159 employ ees at the close of 1982 to the current 367. The department occupies three of five floors of Build ing C at Madison Park. By the end of this year employees will number well over 420 and be in need of the remaining two floors. The new five-story reservations building will be next door to INTRO. The parking deck will add approximately 1.150 parking spaces giving us a total of 1,600 for employees working in both locations. The new three-story building at Madison Park will be immediately adjacent and attached to our present computer reservations center. There will be access between the two structures on the first floor. "All three floors will be designed for com puters," Ted Celentino, vice president-computer and communications services, explained. "By the end of the second quarter of 1987, our pres ent building will be at capacity and we will need this additional space. "Initially, only the first floor, which will house computers, will be used. Later in 1988 we will move people to the third floor. The second floor will be for future growth.” Construction has already begun at Madison Park on the six-story, 1,380-space parking deck, located across from the entrance to our computer reservations center. Employees are currently using a remote parking lot with shuttle service. Construction of both the new facility at Madi son Park and the office building near INTRO will begin next month with completion of both proj ects set for the end of the year. Baggage CAREsystem makes it easier to give good service Above: (stemd- ing, 1 to r) Lou Kirk, team leader; Ben Keith, chief pro grammer; Tbmmy Jonas, baggage services coordi nator; Ed Wright, applications manager; and (seated) Nick Thomas, senior analyst; are re sponsible for put ting together the computer pro gram. Left: In structor Jim Martin (standing] shows agents Connie Parks, JAX, and Ron Archer, SDF, how to use the system. "I can't find my luggage." With over two million passengers traveling on Piedmont each month who either check or carry-on an estimated four million pieces of baggage, losses do occur. Now employees have a new, fully- automated tracking system. Pied mont's Baggage CAREsystem, which is aiding them in their work. For the agent, the system cuts down on paperwork and helps pro vide better and faster customer ser vice. For the customer, the system is much more efficient and gives him or her answers now in minutes instead of days. For Piedmont, the system reduces complaints and costs resulting from mishandled baggage. "Agents really like the program." Cam Morgan, GSO agent, said. "It cuts down on paperwork and does what we previously had to do manually." Cil Ward, MIA agent, agrees. "It's easy to work with and does a good job simplifying our work." "I like it for a number of rea sons," ORF Agent Glenn Stanley explained. "First, when a passen ger reports losl baggage, we can usually locate his bag on the spot through the tracking system, and then tell him exactly where the bag is. Also the new system generates messages on its own to other stations and makes automatic matches. It's a good system for us." The opportunity to design our own automated Baggage CARE system came in the fall of 1985 when we opened our new computer reservations center at Madison Park. "Eastern, who had handled our reservations system for a number of years, did not have room in its system to handle a baggage man agement program," Allen Johnson, director-baggage services, said. "Having our own computer reser vations system opened the doors for the new Baggage CAREsystem. Phase One of the program has been to get the system up and in place, and we accomplished this objective in late January when the last of our stations cut over to the new system. During Phase TWo, we plan to get a handle on baggage prob lems at each station and determine how best to deal with them." In the new Baggage CAREsystem, a fill-in-the-blank form appears on the screen. An agent just com pletes the form with individual passenger information, and the baggage is then traced in-house. If not found, it automatically goes into Easy Ti^ac, a primary industry wide baggage tracing system. If the baggage is still not located, the sys tem goes to ACTS, the Airline Com puterized TVacing System. "In the past, agents have had to fill out parts of the reports manu ally. The new system increases productivity and automatically gives them access to information quickly. It's really a problem solving system for us," Johnson said. Piedmont purchased the software program from another airline in the spring of 1986 and began installing it into our computer reservations system last July. By late Septem ber, the system was ready to be tested, and training classes, held in Winston-Salem and Syracuse, began the following month. Employees in many areas of the company are responsible for suc cessfully getting the program off the ground. Johnson noted. Ed Wright, manager-applications development, worked with Johnson to determine baggage services' needs. Programmer/Analyst Lou Kirk was the team leader for the project: Nick Thomas, senior ana lyst: and Ben Keith, chief program mer. Tommy Jonas served as baggage services coordinator. Sky Day, manager-training stations, and Eric Morgan, instructor-station training, coordinated the training program, "The basic system is now in place with many enhancements yet to come,” Wright said. "We had an ambitious schedule. To install a program of this magnitude can take up to a year. We received sup port from many departments. especially systems, data base and coverage whose cooperation proved to be the key to our success." Thomas added: "Our job is to help make it easier for employees to give good customer service. The new system does just that."
Piedmont Aviation Employee Newsletter
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Feb. 1, 1987, edition 1
6
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