The International Air Transport Association capitalised on the importance of safety and training on the ramp at IGHC 2024. William Hallowell reports from Reykjavík
The 36th IATA Ground Handling Conference (IGHC) – this year hosted in Reykjavík, Iceland – was centred around what the association identified as the three main priorities for the ground handling industry today: safety, global standards and sustainability.
Monika Mejstrikova, IATA’s Director of Ground Operations, told delegates that “to ensure the industry’s growth is supported through safe, efficient and sustainable ground operations … we must continue to focus on improving safety through reducing operational risk, harmonising the implementation of global standards and putting sustainability, people, planet and prosperity at the heart of what we do”. Safety “is our top priority”, she added.
IATA’s ‘top priority’
In her opening speech, Mejstrikova outlined three areas where IATA is working to reduce risk in ground operations.
First is the association’s Enhanced GSE Recognition Program, launched in Reykjavík, which aims to bring an end to ground damage through the adoption of anti-collision and inching technologies to improve vehicle control and increase docking accuracy for ground support equipment (GSE).
“If we don’t act fast,” said Mejstrikova, “ground damage costs could skyrocket to almost US$10 billion by 2035”. Enhanced GSE is the “solution” to mitigate this.
Through adoption of the Enhanced GSE Recognition Program, IATA predicts the ramp will become a safer place for people and aircraft – and reduce ground damage costs by 42%.
Second is injury prevention: “Leveraging insights from the IATA Global Incident Data eXchange (IDX), we have identified the most common injuries in ground handling: slips, trips, falls and impacts from objects,” explains Mejstrikova. “To combat these, we have launched a safety campaign, underscoring the importance of following industry standards.”
And third: mitigating loading errors. According to IATA, the primary causes of loading errors include nets being improperly deployed or completely absent (25%), cargo or baggage not being secured adequately (24%), discrepancies between load sheets and Load Instruction Reports (LIR – 21%) and loading checklists being omitted (19%).
The association is therefore working with industry stakeholders to reduce these errors by digitalising communication between load control and loading teams to ensure data is entered into the system, including digital load reconciliation.
Members who have already adopted these digital solutions have achieved a reduction in loading errors of up to 80%, decreased loading delays by 30% and significantly reduced the use of paper documents, according to Mejstrikova.
Standardising processes
Perhaps the biggest news in terms of industry standardisation this year will be EASA’s proposal for ground handling regulation at EU airports. In January, this proposal was well received by several major ground services providers, including Swissport and dnata, as ARGS covered in the Spring 2024 edition.
But IATA wants industry standardisation to go further. Mejstrikova told IGHC delegates in Iceland that IGOM (the IATA Ground Operations Manual) defines the efficiency and safety requirements for global standardisation of operational processes.
She outlines: “IGOM has proven to be effective, and supporting its global adoption is the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations (ISAGO). In 2023 ISAGO expanded, we conducted 303 audits – an 18% increase over last year. Another 300-plus audits are expected this year.”
And baggage is another area of operations that would “benefit from greater standardisation”.
According to Mejstrikova: “The first significant stride in this direction is the implementation of IATA Resolution 753, which mandates the tracking of bags at four key points during the baggage travel journey. As of today, 44% of airlines have implemented this resolution, and 56% are either in the process or planning to adopt it.”
Second for IATA’s standardisation campaign is the need for greater digitalisation, she said. To increase standardisation, ground handlers must accelerate the adoption of modern baggage messaging standards as the current infrastructure relies on “legacy technologies” using “costly” Type B messaging – which negatively affects Resolution 753 and contributes to issues with message quality, increasing baggage mishandling, Mejstrikova highlighted.
‘People, planet and prosperity’
Conversations around sustainability in aviation may often resort to fixations with sustainable aviation fuel or GSE electrification. But according to IATA, it’s not just about reducing the industry’s environmental impact. It’s also about people and economic sustainability.
For people, this means promoting career development that rewards training and skills – such as the Ground Operations Training Passport launched by IATA last year to recognise training and skills across ground handlers, airlines and airports. For economic sustainability, it’s about reducing turnaround costs, minimising operational delays, decreasing ground damage and driving digitalisation and automation.
“All [are] areas we are working on,” declares Mejstrikova.
Traffic recovery
Speaking at the opening session, IATA Director General Willie Walsh declared: “We’re fortunate to be meeting at a time when the industry is showing strong recovery from the depths of the Covid crisis. If we look at the latest traffic statistics, I’m pleased to say we’re now trending above where we were in 2019.
“We just recently released in March our statistics which show [that] passenger traffic at a global level is 1.2% ahead of where we were in 2019 – and if you split that into domestic and international flying, obviously it’s a very strong performance from domestic flying which recovered quite quickly through the crisis because it wasn’t affected by border closures.
“But domestic flying is now about 6% ahead of where it was in 2019. International travel still lags slightly behind, down by 1.2% – and that’s principally off the back of the Asia-Pacific region which, as you know, had extensive border closures which were well beyond the period for most other countries that opened [back up].
“I think everybody in this room knows there’s a disproportionate focus on the airline industry. We represent 2% of manmade CO2, but the media focus on our industry would suggest that our contribution is well above that.”
In the period from 2000 to 2019, passenger numbers increased by 117%, while CO2 emissions grew by only 54% in comparison, according to Walsh, despite what he identified as an assumption that more passengers mean more emissions.
But “there is a complete disconnect between passenger growth and CO2 growth,” the Director General added.
IATA reaffirms SAF role
On sustainability, Walsh reiterated IATA’s commitment to the Fly Net Zero initiative, which aims to ensure aviation is carbon neutral by 2050. A vital route to hit this target is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
IATA predicts SAF will represent around 65% of the abatement to meet the deadline. But it’s “absolutely critical”, said Walsh, that aviation ramp up SAF production. He stated that governments, globally, must work with the aviation industry to ensure it can do its fair share to decarbonise.
“That transition is going to be expensive, and is going to be challenging, but it is one that we must face up to – and one that I believe passionately we can achieve,” Walsh continued.
Ground challenges
But what barriers do ground handlers face today? It has been recognised that the pandemic changed a lot for aviation – from recruitment and retainment challenges to improved safety through the adoption of new technologies like enhanced ground support equipment.
As Atilla Korkmazoğlu, President of Ground Handling and Cargo at Çelebi, outlined: “We lost a lot of blood during Covid and we lost a lot of experienced staff from the industry. [They’re not] coming back.”
And stakeholders have continued to highlight post pandemic that the loss of experience has impacted safety levels for the worse – because with that experience comes much knowledge.
However, Walsh declared: “We’ve got to reflect on the fact that, at an industry level, last year was the safest year for our business and we achieved that because we work very hard on safety.
“It’s not something we take for granted… It’s important that we continue to strive to improve safety. We [did] go through some significant challenges during the Covid period where we lost a lot of talent and not all that talent returned to the industry.
“Recruiting and retaining talent is something that is going to be challenging us for some considerable time.”
New technologies
Despite the industry’s challenges, however, operational enhancements are being made with the adoption of new technologies, including automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and robotics.
As Philipp Joeinig, CEO of Menzies Aviation, put it: “There has been quite an investment made in the last 20 years in terms of adopting technology. You may not see a big difference when you look at an aircraft turnaround, but there are differences.
“You have a far greater level of transparency today. You have information, data, that you can work with and that you can share with your customers. You have a much greater influence on customer experience than you used to have.
“Operational efficiency, ground handling costs and turnaround times have been reduced because of technology and, on the safety side, [because of] investments in the technology arena we are much safer despite having a larger concession at airports and a higher number of peaks.”
He continued: “All in all, investments have been made and there is more to come. And obviously we always need to consider the return on investment [with these new technologies].”
When questioned on what he would invest in first if Menzies had an infinite pool of money, Joeinig answered that one of the biggest impacts on ground handling operations was the role of both electric and enhanced GSE. New IT software and applications would also be high on the Menzies CEO’s list.
And, according to Walsh: “AI is going to change everything. Whether it changes everything for the good or the bad I’m not so sure yet. I think there are definitely opportunities with AI and I think it’ll bring some challenges and threats as well.”
Where he thinks AI can help the industry is in processing the huge amounts of data stakeholders are collecting.
“Analysing that data in a more efficient way to help us eliminate problems is going to be significant,” he said.
