General Air Services Aruba

Placement organization

Name of organization: General Air Services Aruba
Town/city: Oranjestad
Country: Nederlandse Antillen
Website: http://www.genairaruba.com

Student

Name of student: Steffany Taveras

Specialist area: ITTI
Placement period: 2017-2018

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: groundhanling service company
Organization’s activities: General Air Service Aruba, locally known as GenAir is a ground handling company founded in the year of 1972 by the Muyale brothers. Camilo and Tito Muyale got involved in Tourism and Aviation at a very young age and started off as Ramp agents. However, the constantly increasing tourism flow of the island of Aruba demanded a ground handling service that could cope with the islands rising airline demands. That’s when the two brothers decided to start up their own ground handling service.

From a small ground handling service whom only handled South American charter flight, they currently work with 30 different airlines. Including multinationals like JetBlue, Delta, TUI Netherlands, KLM etc. Handling a total of 30 airlines out of the 39 that operate in Aruba. Currently GenAir offers above the wing (customer service), below the wing (ramp service) and security services. Additionally, GenAir continues to grow offering ground handling services on the islands of Curacao (since 2001) and Bonaire (since 2016)as well.

Like Aruba, Curacao has been expecting a massive growth in their tourism sector, which was more than enough reason for the birth of Antillean Flight Services. This ground handling service company was established in 2001 and offers the same type of services as Aruba.

On the island of Bonaire, GenAir offers their support and supervision. Conducting trainings, audits, handing out certifications and providing ground support equipment support. In comparison to Aruba and Curacao, Bonaire only offers above and below the wing ground handling services to narrow body airplane. However, Bonaire is slowly increasing and developing its services and soon they will be able to offer services to wide body airplanes as well.
Target group of the organization: International Airlines travelling to Aruba Curacao and Bonaire
Company culture: GenAir is a family owned business, currently the owner and director of GenAir is I the hand of Alejandro Muyale. Therefore, GenAir is seen as a sole proprietorship. Meaning a business owned by only one individual. The managing director of GenAir is Mr. Alejandro Muyale. The complete management team of GenAir consists of a total of 19 people, whereby only 4 females. All upper management positions, namely: Director Internal Audit & Quality Assurance, General Manager and Sr. Airport Service Manager are in position of males. The female position taken are Accounting Manager, Quality Risk and Safety Manager, HR Coordinator and Customer Service Supervisor. Additionally, GenAir has a Just-culture, which is created through best practise of IATA. Which means GenAir believe in an atmosphere of trust in which people are encouraged for providing essential safety-related information, but in which they are also clear about where the line must be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable behaviours.
Number of employees: 315
Dress code: uniform
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? i don’t disagree or agree

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

I am working in the HR department and I perform hR as well as Marketing tasks.

Brief description of your daily activities: 1. Aid and perform research on different HR projects when needed. Additionally, contract preparation, administration on employee reports and employee benefits, and make employee schedules.
2. Aid within the employee recruitment process. Tasks within the employee recruitment process consist of: airport-screening, scheduling and participating in potential employee interviews.
3. Employee administration assistance
4. Within the training department assist and participate during employee trainings
5. Develop improvements for GenAir and show this within a digital presentation to all department managers.
6. Performing daily HR activities in GenAir’s HR systems for example: management of employee benefits, handling confidential employee information, foreseeing employee recruitment periods and daily data entries.

On must keep in mind that GenAir’s operations are constantly changing, therefore one cannot expect the same activities on a daily basis. During the office-week additional activities like: requesting quotations, making reservations, making proposals, revising descriptions or plans, creating team-building or leadership presentations, conducting internal audits and giving feedback were performed.
Moreover, during the weekend the following additional daily activities were carried out: attending AAA managers on duty meeting, attending GenAir’s daily operation meeting, attending Monday’s operation/communication meeting and assisting terminal agents at the airport cope with flow of passengers in need of special assistance.

The activities were split up into operational and administrative activities.
Brief description of your company assignment: Before hand they asked me to conduct a re-branding assessment for their current website. And develop an internal communication marketing plan. However during my time here one of the managers asked me to conduct a uniforms re-branding plan.

The website re-branding assessment had to be conducted from scratch. The company is very disorganised and it is hard to find correct information that is interesting for potential customers. Many interviews had to be held in order to find out needed information. Additionally, I had to independently create content needed for the website together with the website developers. I conducted a management photoshoot, and had to request airport escort badge for access to the airport for the photographer.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: I was under supervision of Mariano Ras he is the Airport Service & Training supervisor. However, in the weekends I was under supervision of Carlwyn or Roxanne who are the Customer Service Supervisors.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Customer Service oriented
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office (Excel, Word & PowerPoint), basic IATA knowledge
English: Advanced
Spanish: Intermediate
French: Basic
German: Basic
Italian:
Other languages: sorry no german or french, but basic dutch and papiamento if possible.

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? family / relative
How did you go to work every day? car

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? no
Do you need a work permit? yes, belasting nummer at the servicio di impuesto
How did you arrange the necessary documents: servicio di impuesto aruba
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? two week upon arrival
Did you need certain vaccinations? No
How long in advance?

Language course

Did you take a language course before you started your placement? No
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? Spanish and English knowledge is a must

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 900
Accommodation (monthly): € family stay
Local transport (monthly): € 100
General costs of living (monthly): € 500
Costs of visa: € –
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? The company gives a monthly fee of AWG900,=, which is roughly 400 euros

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
i am a native aruban, therefore I did not need previous preparation. However in comparison to the netherlands , Aruban people are very socially dependant. And they expect constant interaction. F.e. drinks after work or team building activities etc.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? no

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: smt.x@live.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: In comparison to the Netherlands, Aruba has a socially dependent culture whereas the Netherlands is more individualistic. People in Aruba expect constant socialization which means they do not often prioritize work over socialization. Meaning if there is a social gathering after work and they have to work the day after they will still stay till late at the social gathering. If you leave early or reject the invitation sometimes they would feel insulted.

Additionally, Aruba possess a “mañana” way of life, which is totally different in comparison to the Netherlands whereby punctuality is essential. Thereby being early is arriving a minimum of 15 minutes later than the original planned time. However, you aways have to arrive on time but if the person you are meeting with is older or has a higher position than you you should not get mad about his/her tardiness.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Aruba is well-known for having beautiful beaches. many people here do a lot of watersport activities, on sundays most aruban tend to chill at the beach the whole day. Aruba’s nightlife is slowly coming together since the disappearing of Natalee Holloway club are not open till late but till 3 AM. Additionally, if you are interested in yoga you are able to form part of many on donation based yoga clases. There is one on wednesday at the butterfly farm and on saturdays at island yoga.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link