It’s often been said airports are like miniature cities, with airlines, ground support crews and other third parties coexisting under the borough of the airport. Each unit operates independently, with standards of their own, to meet the goal of providing quick and satisfactory service to the flying public who pass through these little cities each day by the thousands.
But just like their full-size counterparts, no one entity at an airport can be completely autonomous in the city, living solely by their own rules. Anarchical airlines don’t fly.
Helping to set the standards and expectations of both the airport and those operating as a part of it are airport operating licenses (AOLs), which Stuart Matheson, director of UK-based Aviation Support Group (ASG), likens to the rules of your local municipality. ASG work in collaboration with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), who represent all major airlines around the world, and publish the international standards in Civil Aviation.
“You know the rules that you have when you live in your town? Things like when you put your bins out and how fast you can drive around schools – the kind of community rules that we all live by in our usual day to day lives – they're essentially what an airport operating license is. It's where all the stakeholders around an airport have an expectation of behaviors as to how you all work together at an airport,” Matheson describes.
Matheson says that AOLs have been prevalent in Europe for decades, but the nature of them has changed as the aviation industry and airports have evolved recently.
“In the old days, we used to have a fairly straightforward relationship where an airport used to have airlines and generally speaking, the airlines did some self-handling. So, in the old days where they used to do their own pushback and baggage loading, and even catering and, to a certain extent, things like line maintenance, where they used to do them internally, now they're realizing that they can get it done cheaper by getting a third party to do it,” Matheson says.
“Now, what that means is that where it used to be a relationship between airline and airport, you've now got this group of people in the middle that are delivering services. And of course, in big airports, it's not just as easy as just one extra party coming in. It might be four or five or six new parties coming in,” he continues. “So, it goes from this very binary relationship to one where all of a sudden we have quite a community of stakeholders. So, I go back to the analogy where we're in a street or where we're in a town, where all of a sudden, the airport has gone from being a binary relationship to being a community.”
And that’s where the AOL comes in and helps lay out the airport’s community guidelines, which are in this case less laws and more standards that an airport expects out of the parties operating in it, and in turn, what those parties can expect out of the airport.
These guidelines are becoming increasingly important to layout as airports continue to grow, change and welcome in more airlines and operators while, often, being unbale to physically expand into the land or area they find themselves in.
An example Matheson uses of how an AOL can be utilized to meet common airport goals is through environmental targets.
“An airport can’t just say, ‘we're going to reduce our carbon footprint by X amount within the next 20 years,’ if the airport isn't responsible, for example, for the ground service equipment. They have to include the community in some of those more strategic decisions. That's normally done by an AOL and within there will be certain service level agreements (SLA) around aiming for electrification or the types of equipment that you can use.” says Matheson.
“If you want to electrify an airport, you have to put in electric baggage tugs, etc., then you've got to think about things like, where do you charge them? Where do you put the electric supplies?” he adds. “Now, what you don't want to do is replace lots of equipment with lots of chargers. So, what you're looking to do is kind of have a common agreement as to what the type of charger is, where does it go, etc., and more importantly, when you actually have a shared asset, whether it be pooled ground service equipment, whether it be chargers, whether it just be shared parking areas, you need to have behaviors around that. You need to have people who know that if you want to use this piece of equipment, these are the standards.”
Seeing the benefit of adopting an AOL, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) recently collaborated with Matheson and ASG to help improve the existing agreement for ground handling operations at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
“The GTAA has established a new Ground Service Provider (GSP) License to Operate (LTO) as a type of AOL. The GTAA determined the number of LTOs that we would issue and received applications from GSPs as part of an RFA process. To be successful, GSPs need to pass a rigorous analysis of their performance, as well as their plans to meet and maintain the expectations of the LTO here at Toronto Pearson. The LTO lays out a standard for operating at Pearson, including the local procedures, management accountability, environmental awareness, ground service equipment (GSE) age limitations, training programs and turnover rates, which all GSPs must be able to meet and maintain,” says Larry Shack, Associate Director, Ground Operations at the GTAA.
Providing a more seamless and satisfying passenger experience was key to GTAA’s adoption of their LTO. Shack says that challenges with their GSP performance in 2016 and 2017 led to interruptions to airport operations causing a detrimental effect on the airport’s passengers.
“It was determined that a level set would enhance safety and improve performance while creating a world class ramp operation in support of Toronto Pearson’s journey to become the world’s best airport,” says Shack. “Passengers and airport partners deserve a positive ground handling experience, which the airport authority can provide by raising the standards for service by independent ground handling providers and for airlines that handle themselves. The GSP LTO at Toronto Pearson ensures a consistent SLS across the airport and reinforces a common commitment to new world class standards.”
Matheson says that many times when ASG is asked to help develop an AOL it’s coming off the back of issues like the ones that led to GTAA’s adopting LTO.
“A lot of the time, the first call is ‘we have had an increase in accidents’ or ‘we have had an increase in airlines complaining about foreign object debris,’” says Matheson. “Generally speaking, what you find is that a lot of the issues are because you have neighbors, i.e., lots of different stakeholders, who don't really know the rules. Therefore, they kind of do what they think they're meant to do, and yeah, there's an airside operation manual, but nobody's held accountable for it. So, generally speaking, it's a deterioration of service or safety issues which prompt an airport to go, ‘I think we've got a problem, can we get something sorted out?’”
However, Matheson stresses that an AOL isn’t something an airport can use to overarchingly inflict their will on airlines, ground handlers and other service providers, forcing them to solve every issue on their own and to the airport’s liking.
“This is about behaviors and responsibilities and corporate and individual accountability, says Matheson. “Sometimes airports have tried to inflict operational standards onto airlines and their ground handlers, which have been commercially unsuccessful. So, they've increased the cost of doing business. That’s not the purpose of the AOL. It's a community agreement – good accountability and clear lines of responsibility, and I don't mean that just from the ground handler, I also mean that there'll be some airport responsibilities. It should reflect the direction of travel and the strategic pace at which you can hit targets and do that as a community.”
This collaborative approach to standardization is the path that GTAA took when crafting their LTO, with Shack echoing Matheson’s community-minded sentiments.
“Ultimately, the airport authority has the responsibility for the safe and efficient operation of the airport, as well as determining how service level standards should be set and maintained. However, as mentioned earlier, airports are complex, with multiple players. All parties should have a hand in shaping the working environment on the ramp, because this collaborative approach keeps the airport community aligned and committed to common operating procedures, “ Shack says.
“A well-run airport is a delicate ecosystem, so each component needs to complement the others,” he adds. “Toronto Pearson’s LTO makes it possible for each player to clearly understand the others’ roles and accountabilities in the system and what service excellence can contribute to the system. Every party in the process should be bringing commitment and buy-in to the table, as well as a realistic and measurable approach to setting SLAs.”
And while the thought of adding another piece of regulatory text into the library of legislature of each airport and service provider can seem daunting, Matheson says the AOL isn’t something to be frightened of. A good AOL won’t impact any commercial agreements or intrude on existing agreements between airlines, ground handlers and other service providers at the airport.
“Historically, when you mentioned airport operating licenses to ground handlers, they go, ‘oh my god, I've already got an agreement,’ It's not something to be frightened of. They will increasingly become important because as we see a reduction in space around airports. We're going to have to start sharing space. We're going to have to start sharing equipment more,” Matheson says. “We have to therefore get the right behaviors in, so everybody knows how to behave when they use the same equipment, because what you can't have is somebody use it, doesn't care, gets it smashed up, and nobody's responsible.
“Vehicles account for 84 percent of ground damage to aircraft. What we can't have is add more vehicles to an already busy airport,” he continues. “We have to find a way of alleviating that risk. That is probably going to happen through pooling and at the back of pooling, you have to have a level of behavior, level of accountability which only the AOL can supply.”
For GTAA, Shack says the benefits of their AOL have been clearly seen.
“Our goals were to enhance safety, operational performance and customer service. In a little over a year we have seen promising progress as a result of the new GSP LTO, including a rapidly growing safety culture. The licensed GSPs meet regularly with the airport authority to work collaboratively on common challenges,” says Shack. “These meetings continue to reinforce a level playing field and a team-oriented approach to realizing Toronto Pearson’s vision of becoming the best airport in the world.”
