Blog Archives
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The 800-Pound Gorilla In The Room …
By Steve Smith - Tuesday May 14, 2013Last week, a group of wheelchair attendants employed by PrimeFlight Aviation Services, asked the Occupational Health & Safety Administration to inspect working conditions at Philadelphia International Airport. The complaints, filed with OSHA’s Philadelphia regional office, allege violations of the federal Air Carrier Access Act and ask the Transportation Department to impose fines and order US Airways, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines to force PrimeFlight to correct the problems. Specifically, the workers allege that they do not receive training on how to help handicapped passengers, are exposed to blood and other bodily fluids without protection and are forced to use faulty equipment. Furthermore, the complaints contend that the... -
IATA Refines Its Ground Damage Database
By Steve Smith - Tuesday May 7, 2013We're attending this week’s IATA Ground Handling Conference in Vancouver, and ended the first day with a 90-minute workshop on the trade group’s refinements to its Ground Damage Database. “Airlines have collected data on accidents in many different buckets on their own,” said David Anderson, head of operational safety for British Airways and chairman of the GDDB. “It’s not a question of the quantity of the data, but the quality of the data.” The GDDB was originally launched in 2011 to act as a better funnel for the reasons and causes for aircraft damage. IATA spent time that same year to make sure the data was reported consistently so that it could be used to better measure the progress made against what is largely... -
The Other Side To The Swissport Ukraine Saga
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 30, 2013
There were two press conferences recently with Swissport and Ukraine International Airlines telling their respective sides of recent court action in Ukraine that ruled in favor of UIA. Up until that time, we heard more from Swissport than we did from UIA. We'll have more in our May issue on the story. In the meantime, here's a Q&A we conducted with Evgeniya Satskaya, UIA's corporate press secretary. Q: I understand that UIA went to court based on a mere discussion of a further capital investment that would result in the dissolution of UIA’s holding. A: It was not a discussion. On March 6th 2012 SPI held the GSM where SPI voted in favor of dilution of UIA’s shareholding in SPU, that was the default under the Participant's... -
Readers Sound Off About High Turnover
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 23, 2013Earlier this month, John Goglia asked a simple question in a blog after he read the news about a deicing incident in Canada: Is high turnover on the ramp causing simple errors? We posted John’s blog on several LinkedIn groups, including our own, and received almost 20 responses. Have a look at a handful of responses: “ Without a shadow of doubt , yes!! In the last 20 years I have seen a shift from Full-Time employment to that of Part-Time Employment. Thus, what was once seen as a career working on the Apron and climbing the ladder. We now see the role as nothing more than a ‘job’, and one that has to be supplemented by another Part-Time job in another industry just to make ends meet. Combine this with a sever lack of... -
History Of Regional Passenger Bridges
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 16, 2013
We'll turn this week's blog over to Ed Jacob who recently filled us in by email on how passenger bridges for regional aircraft came to be: “Here is my recollection of the birth of the jetbridge adaptor for regional aircraft. “Simmons Airlines, aka American Eagle were operating ATRs in the Chicago market (both 42s and 72s) when I got a call one day to come down to the Champaign (CMI) airport. “I flew down and met the staff whereupon GM Rick Gorham introduced me to one of his staff - Gordon Stewart (NOTE: Ed’s not sure of the spelling of Gordon’s last name.) Gordon, who always had an impish smile, asked if I'd like to see something they were working on, whereupon he cranked up the jetbridge and swung it around to a position... -
Final Injustice For Swissport
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 9, 2013
Kangaroos aren’t indigenous to Ukraine, but kangaroo courts seem to be another matter. On April 7, a Ukrainian court ruled against Swissport International in a shareholder lawsuit. The verdict meant that a minority shareholder in Swissport Ukraine won the right to pay just $400,000 for a business that Swissport valued between $25 million and $30 million. The Loadstar , an excellent blog on global cargo and logistics, reported that Ukraine has “developed something of a reputation for ‘corporate raids’ in the past few years.” As the country looks to integrate with Europe, government officials have initialed free trade and other business agreements with the EU. The EU, however, says much more needs to be done over “the... -
More Ground Support Equipment History
By Steve Smith - Tuesday April 2, 2013
We heard from a few readers recently about our cover story in February’s issue on “The History Of Ground Support Equipment,” as well as last week’s blog on a boarding bridge installed in Atlanta, which in itself was the result of another reader’s email. Last week, we heard from a reader who promised more information on the first boarding bridge for regional aircraft. Stay tuned for more on that. But about a week before, we received a long email from a retired GSE veteran: “I started in GSE for American Airlines in 1963. The only tugs we had at the time were made by Clark. They were the CT-21. At least half of the tugs we had were made prewar.” “We also had David Clark headsets at the time. I still have my... -
Just Where Was The First Boarding Bridge Installed?
By Steve Smith - Tuesday March 26, 2013
We heard from Joe Fuqua of Delta Air Lines and who also sits on our Editorial Advisory Board about last month’s cover story on “The History Of Ground Support Equipment.” Joe filled us in more on who was behind creating the first boarding bridge, and points to a different airport than the two - San Francisco and LaGuardia - which are typically credited for the first such installations in 1959. Until we hear otherwise, we think we can at least all agree on the year since Joe sent us a scanned-in copy of the October 1959 issue of Airlift published by American Aviation Publishing. On page 47, in an article headlined, “2 a.m. Brainstorm: Delta’s Jetway,” one Glenn Hughie writes about how Delta developed the original... -
Winners One And All
By Steve Smith - Tuesday March 19, 2013
This week’s “cover” story in our GSW e-newsletter recaps our three Ground Support Leaders of the Year we recognized last week at AviationPros LIVE, March 13-14, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. We honored Tronair, Travis Blair and Bill Biermann, as our Product Leader, Team Leader, and Lifetime Achievement winners, respectively. And Ground Support Worldwide readers can also read more about each in cover stories to be published in the next three issues of the magazine beginning with the April edition. But let’s also recognize all the techs who took part in last week’s AMT Society Maintenance Skills Competition. We were able to provide live webcasting of the events throughout the show, plus sponsor Snap-On Industrial also... -
See You Next Week In Vegas
By Steve Smith - Tuesday March 5, 2013We’ll be holding our AviationPros Live trade show and conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center, March 13-14. Here’s all you need to know about the GSE-related events: Seminars Wednesday, March 13 11 a.m.-12 noon Electric GSE Funding Speaker: Neal Wolfe, LeighFisher Funding through the FAA’s Voluntary Airport Low Emission Program may be the well-proven method to invest in electric ground support equipment. However, VALE is not the only funding source available. Learn about other various state and local funding initiatives that ground support professionals and airlines can directly use to purchase electric GSE or use to augment an airport’s VALE project. Neal Wolfe is a senior consultant with LeighFisher, an...
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Events
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- 05/15/13 - 05/18/13
- ACI-NA Legal Affairs Conference
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Conference/Expo, Seattle, WA
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- 05/19/13 - 05/22/13
- 85th Annual AAAE Conference and Exposition 2013
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Conference/Expo, Reno, NV
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- 05/21/13 - 05/23/13
- EBACE2013
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Conference/Expo, Geneva,
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- 05/21/13 - 05/22/13
- FAME in Jet Measurement and EI Aviation Fuels Test Method Conference
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Conference/Expo, Teddington,
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- 06/03/13 - 06/03/13
- Ultrasonic Testing Level 1 Course
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Training, Lewistown, PA
