Thai's manager at frankfurt airport keeps everything nice and smooth

To be appointed manager of the airline's biggest and most hectic station in Europe is an honour in itself, but Katonchalee Sookphate is overwhelmed that she is the first woman to hold this post in the airline.

"It is an honour that comes with lots of pressure. Sometimes I can't help wondering if I can manage. But then I think that my supervisors believed in me when they assigned me the job, and I believe I can do it,"

The job is not new to Katonchalee. In her nearly three decades with the airline, her speciality has always been ground services, and she was stationed abroad in Taiwan for two and a half years, as well as in other European countries.

"We work as the representative of Thai Airways on the operations side. Our job is to take care of the entire station, making sure that the flight comes in and goes out smoothly. Also, we provide customer services such as ticketing, boarding, connecting flights to ensure that they have the smoothest journey possible. We also coordinate with our marketing office in town."

Because Frankfurt is also a base for Lufthansa, Thai Airways' Star Alliance partner, there is additional cooperation that needs to be done, she said.

After three months managing THAI's biggest station in Europe, Katonchalee feels the work is more or less the same as elsewhere. "There is already a system established for how to deal with each problem. Our job is therefore to maintain the system and let it run smoothly."

One difference, however, is the nature of the people she deals with.

"Germans tend to be more willing to express their dissatisfaction. Hence, we have to deal with them with patience. And even if it is not our fault [ie, the problem has not occurred in the station], we have to listen as much as possible," she said.

Most importantly, Katonchalee tells her staff to apologise. "Even though we do not know who created the problem, chances are they are TG personnel. So we, as part of the same company, must take responsibility and find a solution to the problem," she said.

"Besides this, comments from passengers are the guidelines as to where we still need to develop ourselves," she said.

Apart from ensuring that everything runs smoothly, Katonchalee faces the challenging task of getting the station ready to serve arrivals of the double-deck, wide-body Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, in 2010.

"It is a very huge and demanding task because we will be dealing with a much larger number of passengers," said Katonchalee. The number of seats in the A380 can vary from 525 in the standard three-class configuration to 853 seats in the all-economy configuration.

"We are planning some training programmes for our staff so that they are ready for the immense task, as well as considering if we need to hire more staff."

If the plane is delivered on schedule, the A380s will start arriving in Frankfurt at the end of 2010, Katonchalee said.