Ostend-Bruges Airport is flying high with the facility services provided by Cleaning Masters

Facility management that moves with you

“I have a broad range of responsibilities,” Jeroen Van Sevenant begins. For the past eight years, he has been responsible for the maintenance and management of the airport infrastructure, in and around the buildings. “That ranges from baggage systems to runway lighting, but also the maintenance and management of the passenger terminal, the air traffic control tower building and the cargo building of one of our partners.” Thanks to the peace of mind provided by external partners such as Cleaning Masters, Jeroen can coordinate those teams and ongoing projects efficiently. That way, he can respond quickly to problems or unexpected situations. And at an airport, that certainly comes in handy.

Flexibility on several levels

That working at an airport requires some flexibility will come as no surprise to anyone. “The normal course of events is that the cleaning masters follow the flight schedule: where the passengers are, no cleaning is done, but it is cleaned immediately after those passengers have left again. That schedule is monitored by the Cleaning Masters supervisor. Of course, flights do sometimes get delayed. Or additional flights are added when they are diverted from other airports. The cleaning staff need to be able to anticipate that.”

Jeroen does not feel it is necessary to sit down with the supervisor every week. “I do not really like working that way. I speak to the supervisor very regularly, and we are both very easy to reach. That flexibility is important to me.”

Challenges and protocols at an airport

Airports face increased risk factors, and that requires more than cleaning experience alone. “Europe imposes a number of security requirements,” Jeroen explains. “Everyone working at the airport must be in possession of a badge. To obtain one, they must first take an exam after a short course. Staff are also screened by the competent government authorities.”

Strict protocols also apply during the job itself. “Cleaning trolleys may never be left unattended, because passengers must not have access to chemical products or dangerous tools.”

In addition, certain areas, such as those of the FASFC food agency, are signed off on a checklist after every cleaning round. So there is quite a lot involved in a job at the airport, in addition to cleaning experience. Cleaning Masters ensures that the right people are assigned to the right place.

“I speak to the Cleaning Masters supervisor every day, and we are both very easy to reach. That flexibility is important to me.”

Complete facility peace of mind

At the beginning of 2023, Ostend-Bruges Airport entered into a partnership with Cleaning Masters. Why did they change partner? “We were very satisfied with the cleaning staff themselves, so we took them with us into the new partnership. But the project management did not meet expectations: when changes or unusual situations arose, it took too long before action was taken. Because of that lack of direction, the coordination and planning of the cleaning team increasingly ended up with me and my colleagues, and that was not sustainable.”

Since 2023, Cleaning Masters has been handling cleaning, waste management and the supply of sanitary products, and now also window cleaning. “We strive for complete peace of mind: all operational facility services under one umbrella.”

The impact of an integrated facility partner

That complete peace of mind has a clear effect on the work floor. Employees of the same partner know the entire site and take responsibility for the whole, without passing tasks on to one another. This frees up valuable time for Jeroen and his colleagues for other priorities. The result speaks for itself: more than 1,000 surveyed travellers rated the cleanliness of the airport as good to very good in 85% of cases. “Those passengers do not know the ins and outs,” Jeroen concludes. “It is nice to see that this is also how it is experienced on the outside.”

“More than 1,000 surveyed travellers rated the cleanliness of the airport as good to very good in 85% of cases.”