A responsible employer

Diversity in the Group

Munich Airport benefits from the diversity of its employees. The company respects the cultural heritage and sexual orientation of all of its employees, taking into account their diverse interests and needs. About 25 percent of Group employees (total workforce including apprentices, excluding workers in minor employment, temporary workers, and interns) come from more than 80 different countries. Most non-German employees come from Turkey, followed by Croatia and Hungary. The Munich Airport Group has committed itself to successively increasing the proportion of women in management roles. Individual targets were set in this regard in fall 2017, which are revisited every three years. For example, women can participate in the cross-mentoring program when they commence their management duties, in which each participant is assigned a manager from another company as a mentor for a period of one year. The «MStars» network aims to promote continuous exchange between professionally successful women within and outside the company. Attention was focused in 2019 on actively networking «MStars» with women’s networks in public authorities and other companies in the Munich region. Among other activities, «MStars» organized a series of panel discussions, which examined the challenges facing female managers in different sectors and working areas, and facilitated knowledge sharing between the many participants.

Housing for employees

FMG takes its responsibility as an employer seriously and is committed to providing housing for employees. From fully furnished apartments – also for temporary use – to residential houses in which individual rooms with communal kitchens and bathrooms can be rented, an array of configurations and price ranges are covered. Munich Airport is easily accessible from all properties. Fully fitted serviced apartments in Hallbergmoos, a neighboring community of the airport, were added to the portfolio by the Group in 2019, in a building that had previously been used exclusively as office space. All 132 residential units in the new «employee hotel» have been ready for occupancy since December 2019. The housing campaign is part of the human resources strategy, where the goal is to meet future staffing needs in the Group by supporting job applicants and employees in searching for accommodation.

Focusing on family and health

Group management is convinced that good performance and a family-friendly working environment are mutually dependent. FMG has for many years placed a high priority on being family-friendly and has supported this with numerous offerings. Moreover, much of the airport’s work in this area is focused on maintaining or improving the ability of staff to work. The Corporate Health and Social Management division offers a wide array of services, ranging from occupational medicine and employee catering to advice for people living in difficult circumstances. The Munich Airport Group offers a range of supplementary company benefits for a healthy work-life balance. The Group health day was held for the sixth time in 2019 with the motto «Gesund mit allen Sinnen» (Healthy in every sense), while the company run took place for the 16th time with 900 employees taking part.

Back to work with occupational integration management (BEM)

Munich Airport supports all employees in getting back to work after a longer period of illness as part of the occupational integration management (BEM) program. This is a voluntary and confidential process for restoring, supporting, and maintaining working ability and employability. To raise awareness of the topic among management-level employees, the advanced training module «Occupational integration management and health-driven leadership» was established in 2019 as a compulsory event as part of the Leadership Excellence Program for managers.

Inclusion: central feature of corporate philosophy

As of December 31, 2019, the Group employed just under 700 staff members with disabilities or equivalent limitations, corresponding to around seven percent of the total workforce. A number of different measures have been put in place to facilitate as normal an everyday working life as possible. A works agreement was also adopted in 2019, which regulates parking for employees with restricted mobility: Regardless of status as a person with disabilities, employees are allocated a parking space near the workplace in the event of a mobility restriction.

«Health Lounge AeroGround»: training under realistic conditions

The level of strain on the musculoskeletal system is especially high for employees in aircraft handling. The number of missed days recorded by AeroGround in this regard continues to rise. The «Health Lounge AeroGround» model project is a prevention and awareness-raising initiative, which provides a room close to the workplace for strength and mobility training in accordance with sports science standards. A further component of the project is the integration of the musculoskeletal program «Aufwind», which provides a physiotherapeutic consultation and simulation of workplace-specific movements and loading activities for all Group employees. Employees can learn healthy motion patterns in this way under realistic conditions.

Occupational health and safety: firmly embedded in corporate culture

Creating optimum working conditions

Munich Airport is constantly developing new solution approaches to counteract health hazards and risks in the workplace. Regular information events are held to further cement the issue of occupational health and safety in the corporate culture. The Occupational Health and Safety division has defined indicators for systematically monitoring occupational health and safety, which it monitors and analyzes on an ongoing basis. The aim is to identify fields of action in order to be able to develop the necessary measures. Managers receive reports on a regular basis as of 2019 with the indicators and recommendations for optimum occupational health and safety.

Seminar for knowledge sharing

The second Group-wide workplace safety committee meeting took place in July 2019, focusing on communication and positive error culture. In addition to attending presentations by internal and external speakers, an opportunity was accordingly also provided for a Group-wide exchange of knowledge. Meanwhile, the occupational health and safety conference held in October 2019, which was attended by managers, works councils, specialists from the field of occupational health and safety, along with safety officers from ground transportation companies, centered on shared communication and collaboration on the apron.

Ergonomics project makes strides

Aircraft ground services staff perform challenging physical activities with a demonstrably heightened risk of musculoskeletal disorders. FMG therefore conducted a survey in 2018 in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute on the development of a robot-based automatic baggage loading system, which would significantly reduce the physical strain of manual activities on these employees. A concept study was concluded in 2019 with a positive outlook, which among other information contains initial assessments in relation to technological feasibility.

Coordination and control authority established

Some changes to the licensing procedure were introduced when the license for ground handling services was awarded. A new specification documents the developments in relation to occupational health and safety, which seek to improve the safety of all employees on the apron on an ongoing basis. In addition, a coordination and control authority is to examine whether the standards laid down in the specification are being observed. A specially developed auditing process describes the systematic implementation of audits, methods, and practices. The planned audits were concluded fully in 2019.

New works agreement

A works agreement came into effect in July 2019 at FMG to examine psychological stress at the workplace. Precise findings are to be provided by means of a scientifically validated, multi-stage screening process. An employee survey is planned in fall 2020 as an initial step in order to obtain an overview of the stress situation in the company. Measures will then be developed in a second step to reduce psychological stress. The entire process is to be managed by an expert group made up of representatives of the respective parties as well as from occupational medicine and occupational health and safety.

Security

The issue of security is critically important in aviation. Among other duties, Corporate Security is responsible for internal security obligations incumbent on airport operators and for defense against risks and hazards. It also promotes collaboration between the security organizations at the airport: Topics addressed by the Security working group, which is made up of representatives of authorities, FMG, individual subsidiaries, and airlines, include prevention of security-related incidents, as well as other security-critical issues.

Airport Rescue and Firefighting: rapid response on the campus and beyond

As part of Corporate Security, the Airport Rescue and Firefighting service on the premises of the airport in Munich is responsible for fire safety and for technical assistance in the area of fire safety in aircraft and buildings. With qualified rescue service personnel and its own rescue vehicles, it provides 24-hour emergency assistance for passengers, visitors, and employees, and performs safety monitoring for work and events involving a fire hazard. With its two fire stations, the emergency personnel can reach any part of the flight operation areas within 180 seconds and thus fulfill the prescribed rescue periods for aircraft fire protection. The extinguishing capacity for aircraft fire protection meets the strictest requirements (category 10) set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for every runway. And it is not just within the airport campus that Munich Airport’s firefighting service is called into action. Extreme snowfall in the Upper Bavarian district of Traunstein in mid-January 2019 triggered an emergency alert. Eight crew members from Airport Rescue and Firefighting, who were specially trained for working at high altitudes, joined the effort to clear snowdrifts and ice floes from rooftops and edges.

Airport safety: management system rolled out

Safety is also a tremendously important issue for airports. This involves safe operation of aircraft and the guarantee of technical operational readiness of infrastructure and systems for the safe handling of airport operations. Following adoption of Regulation (EU) No. 139/2014 on the basis of Basic Regulation EU 2018/1139 on aviation safety, common standards are laid down for planning, operating, and maintaining the safety of airports, which FMG must also adhere to bindingly. Munich Airport’s operating license is directly dependent on renewal of its EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) Certificate granted in December 2017. Under this certification, the airport must demonstrate constant compliance with relevant requirements to the responsible supervisory authority, the South Bavarian Aviation Office at the District Government of Upper Bavaria. A new safety management system at FMG ensures compliance with these requirements and ongoing improvement of safety and EASA compliance. The primary objective of this system is to prevent potential accidents, by identifying hazards, assessing risks, and introducing measures to mitigate the risks.

SESAR project: Munich Airport draws on research findings

Flughafen München GmbH is collaborating with six other major airports as part of the SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) project to progressively develop the European airspace system. In 2018, FMG took over at the helm of the airport consortium SEAC2020, which means that it is responsible for managing airport activities as part of the EU Commission-backed SESAR project. The overriding goal of the research activities is to make aviation processes more efficient and safer. The participating airports intend to take on a steering role over and above classic ground processes. FMG’s participation in SESAR future projects is now paying off, as FMG can draw on the many findings of the research work to support it in its current rollout of a ground coordinator function at Munich Airport.

Low bird strike rates thanks to sophisticated biotope management

Collisions between aircraft and heavyweight birds or flocks of birds can endanger the safety of flight operations. Using a special biotope management system, Munich Airport protects against possible collisions. These safety measures do not impact negatively on the protection of the birds that have made their home at Munich Airport.

• The green areas around the runways are mown according to a concept that is adjusted to the local conditions.
• The terrain at and around the airport is designed to prevent bird species that pose a critical risk to air traffic from settling there in the first place.
• The drainage channels near the runways are spanned by steel ropes in order to make access difficult, in particular for waterfowl.
• «Wildlife Management» employees monitor the bird population on the airport campus and in relevant biotopes within the vicinity, in order to ward off potential dangers from bird flight movements at an early stage.

FMG works closely with the relevant partners and institutions on the topic of bird strike prevention, in particular with the airlines, German air traffic control, regional and higher-level authorities, and the GBSC (the German Bird Strike Committee). The statistics from the GBSC show that Munich Airport has had a relatively low bird strike rate for many years now. In areas 1 and 2, the average bird strike rates at Munich Airport in 2019 were 49 and 31 percent lower, respectively, than the rates recorded for Germany.

Wildlife strike-rates¹