Some insights
“The good, the bad and the ugly” – there are so many things that can go wrong – sometimes spectacularly, with the fast-moving “ballet” of ground support equipment in close proximity to delicate and expensive aircraft. Ground handling errors have expensive consequences, causing operational delays, damage to aircraft, and involving injuries and even deaths. We don’t believe that we have reliable statistics about ground handling accidents (let alone incidents) due to under-reporting, but clearly the problem is a “silent plague” that is too important to ignore. Besides the direct safety issues, ground handling accidents and associated delay costs are reported by IATA to cost the airline industry billions of dollars U.S. annually and it’s increasing”.
Speech by Angela Gittens, Director General Airports Council International (ACI). Madrid 20th November 2013.
Challenging in a complex environment…
“Ground handling operations are a source of significant personnel safety and aircraft/equipment damage concerns. The complexity of ground handling operations has increased with widespread airport development and traffic growth, corresponding to larger numbers and size of aircraft. Compounding the issue is the demand to achieve minimized turnaround and stand occupancy times, which also increases the concentration of simultaneous ground handling operations and more ground support equipment. Maintaining and improving ground operational safety are challenging in this complex environment yet there are few global regulatory provisions in place”.
Agenda item 33 ICAO Assembly-39th Session/Technical Commision. Montreal 5th August 2016.
There is a lot to do.
Like the quotes above state: this is a concern of growing proportions and there are few global regulatory provisions in place. Estimates vary but IATA believes the airline industry is exposed to US$ 4.000.000.000 (4 Billion) annually direct costs due to aircraft damages and it is even harder to assess the total cost of LTI-Lost Time Injuries in our industry.
True, there are safety training programs in place, there are Safety Management Systems established for ground handling but not all are equally effective and every handling activity is different. The Safety Culture is an integral part of any SMS and several researches have shown this to be a concern*.
Whether it is the airlines’s own handling, airport’s own handling or the independent handling agent doing the actual work; a 30 minute (or less) handling for a full in- and outbound Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 remains challenging, even in perfect weather conditions and an ‘ontime’ arrival.
Essential Ground Safety 