Operations of SAS Ground Services (SGS) Finland transferred to ISS Palvelut Oy

As a result of a business transfer contract signed on 1 June 2009, SGS Finland, a SAS subsidiary responsible for ground services in Finland, will be transferred to ISS Palvelut. The entire personnel of SGS Finland, totalling 334 persons, will transfer to ISS Palvelut as existing employees. The business will transfer to ISS at the beginning of July.

The business transfer is part of the Core SAS business strategy of SAS Group, aimed at ensuring the competitiveness of SAS in the future by focusing on its core business. As a result of the contract, ISS Palvelut will provide ground services that SAS and its subsidiary Blue1 require in Finland.

ISS has long and extensive experience in the airport environment as well as in the management of service and HR processes, which means that ISS has excellent opportunities for the further development of the ground service business. Expanding operations to cover ground services supports the growth strategy of ISS, aimed at developing and tailoring increasingly extensive HR-intensive support services to cater for the special needs of selected customer segments, such as air traffic.

“We very much appreciate the specialised know-how of SGS personnel. The business of SGS will introduce a new, important supplement to the ISS service range in Finland,” says Mika Martola, Director ISS Palvelut.

SAS Group Corporate CommunicationsMika Martola, Director, ISS Palvelut, telephone +358 407 035 198
Tom Christides, VP Corporate Communications, SAS, telephone +358 407 523 131
SGS Finland is the second largest company in Finland providing ground services for air traffic. Over 250 of its employees work at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, and the rest are based in five other airports in Finland. SGS Finland provides check-in and departure gate functions, ticket agency and lounge services, luggage processing services, aircraft loading and unloading services as well as aircraft servicing, among other things. The turnover of SGS Finland is about EUR 20 million.

ISS Palvelut Oy provides HR-intensive core business support services both for companies and the public sector. Its customer-specific services include building development, cleaning, building maintenance, office services, security services, catering services and technical services, among others. The personnel of ISS consists of around 12,000 professionals, and its service network covers the whole of Finland. In 2008, the turnover of ISS Palvelut totalled EUR 472 million. ISS Palvelut Oy is part of the international ISS Group, which has operations in fifty countries. www.iss.fi, www.issworld.com