How Condor Technik improves route optimization at the airport with smart tracking

Aircraft maintenance is a time-critical process. However, long distances can cost valuable minutes, especially at a major airport like Frankfurt: The Condor hangar is located on the opposite side of the airport grounds to the terminals. On the direct route, this is a distance of three to four kilometers. Taking the route around the runway, it can be as much as ten kilometers – and throughout the entire airport site, a strict speed limit of 30 km/h applies. Condor Technik GmbH, a subsidiary of Condor Flugdienst GmbH, relies on the IoT-based tracking solution from Sensolus to optimize the routes to be covered when using its ground support equipment, thereby saving important time and increasing overall efficiency in daily operations.

The kick-off for the project came from daily needs: long distances between the hangar and the work site at Frankfurt Airport led to time-consuming processes, especially when the exact location of the required equipment was not known.

“Due to inefficient routes, our teams spent an unnecessary amount of time providing equipment such as ladders or tire change carts where they were needed to work on the aircraft,” explains Vera Pomnitz, Project Manager Process Improvements at Condor Technik.

The goal: a simple, robust and durable solution for localizing ground support equipment that reliably locates non-powered devices.

In the selection process, Sensolus stood out primarily due to the trackers’ long battery life, weather resistance, and robust design. The IoT-based trackers were designed for non-powered assets and are equipped with a powerful battery that enables a service life of up to ten years. The Sensolus trackers not only communicate in encrypted form for localization, but also via NarrowBand IoT (NB-IoT) to save energy.

“We compared various providers. The decisive factor for us was that the trackers should last a long time without requiring maintenance and reliably display the location of the assets – even when things get rough or extreme temperatures prevail,” emphasizes Vera Pomnitz. In addition to the technology, the close, solution-oriented support provided by the Sensolus team also played an important role in the decision.

Following the start of the project at the end of 2024, things got underway straight away in spring 2025, and the effort required for the rollout was minimal: as soon as the cloud-based management platform from Sensolus was activated for Condor users the individual trackers could be mounted on the ground support equipment, connected to the platform via NB-IoT connectivity easily  and then localized at any time. All within just two days.

Introducing users to the Sensolus management platform was straightforward. “The platform is very intuitive and our colleagues quickly learned how to use it,” says Pomnitz. In addition to the shift supervisors, the tooling department also uses the platform to manage the devices.

From tire change carts for various types of aircraft to oxygen and nitrogen carts, a fuel drain cart, cargo stairs, an engine washer and a mobile toilet emptying cart – the ground support equipment is only moved via external vehicles and does not have its own power supply.

For this reason, it was almost impossible to localize the equipment for a long time. Since the beginning of 2025, the Condor assets have been equipped with IoT-based trackers from Sensolus and can be precisely localized on the huge airport grounds and displayed on the map.

The precise tracking data now helps the technical teams to plan the deployment of ground support equipment in a targeted manner, optimize necessary routes and thus save a lot of time. “With the newly gained overview,” explains the project manager for process improvements, ”many trips from one side of the airport site to the other can now be eliminated – that adds up and pays off.”

The Sensolus solution has already become an integral part of Condor Technik’s daily work processes after just a few months, and the company is benefiting from optimized routes and more efficient processes. Vera Pomnitz sees even more potential: “We currently only use the location information but are planning to use additional trackers with built-in sensors. This would also allow us to monitor the temperature and humidity of engines or in spare parts warehouses. If the tests are successful, we want to expand the system. Other Condor areas could also benefit in the future.”