How Ground Handling Was Built Up Down Under

The aircraft ground handling industry is notoriously less integrated than the flight operations business. This is due in particular to the lack of international operational and safety standards enforced by regulators and, together with it, the existence of very many service providers. The Oceanian region has had an aircraft ground handling industry group for several years which has historically played a leading role at increasing operational commonality within the region (and beyond) as well as at developing safety improvement initiatives, such as limitations on baggage weights, which are common place now but were not at the time the initiatives were launched. 

How it all started

The idea of launching an industry group started from the recognition that there was a need for operators to work together. “The Council’s origin can really be traced back to the early 1980s when the representative from Trans Australia Airlines (TAA), John Edwards, came to meet me in New Zealand to discuss possible bench-marking aircraft ground handling procedures,” Norman Hogwood, formerly Air New Zealand senior ground safety adviser who was the first to be elected chairman of the council, says. “From there we decided to draw in the two other major airlines in the region, Qantas and Ansett Australia. Thus the Council was established.”

“The group was started back with the purpose to share information on our operations and determine what the best course of safety action would be” says Ulrich Ojczyk, a founder of the AAGSC then working with Ansett Airlines.

Like in all industries, each organisation has their own way of operating which can lead to some confusion due to different expectations.

“So we formed the council where we would discuss the base operations and expectations – come up with what we considered as a group to be the best safety solution which we then took back to our organisations to seek implementation,” Ojczyk says.

Hogwood adds that when the AAGSC started, the respective airlines were all self-handled, i.e. Qantas, TAA and Ansett all did their own handling. Air New Zealand was handled by Qantas at the Australian stations and Air New Zealand handled Qantas within New Zealand. Contract ground handling companies were largely unknown, in fact Air New Zealand handled all the “foreign” carriers operating into New Zealand, until independent service providers appeared in the early 1990s.

From the very beginning it was agreed that meetings would be held quarterly, hosted by the member airlines in rotation. It was further agreed that the core business of the council would focus on activities pertaining to airport ramp and terminal operations. The nature of the council’s business agendas, however, quickly identified the need to expand membership further by including those organisations who share the same airport working environment. Thus membership was opened to fuel companies, catering companies and handling agencies. Progressively, it had become custom to invite representatives from the major airport companies in the region to attend meetings in the capacity of invited guests and by 1997 it had become clear that, due to the evolution of the aviation industry and the far-reaching legislation changes taking place, the Council’s membership policy should be changed to allow airports to become full members.

“So from there it developed and is still running today. The last meeting was held in Brisbane in February 2016 and the basic principles are still operating, namely the sharing of information and discussions on practices to ensure a safe operation. We have been fortunate over those early years as we received recognition from many organisations and in particular an award from the Flight Safety Foundation” Ojczyk says.

Key achievements

Historically the AAGSC has pioneered multiple safety initiatives that have improved the ramp as a working environment. One such achievement concerned airport driver’s licenses.

“Airport workers could then drive on the airport so long as they had their normal car driving license; this was causing problems as they were unaware of the specific activities of aircraft movements,” Ojczyk says. “So we approached airport authorities and recommended that airport workers driving on the airport should be trained and given the knowledge of airport activities and the recommended driving practices. This was an initiative that went ahead.”

Another initiative led by the AAGSC was with regard to baggage weights.

“It was clear that the amount of manual handling injuries was unacceptable and on examination you could see that the baggage loader would just grab a bag and move it to the trolley and then into the aircraft hold and did not have any indication of its weight,” Ojczyk says. “Clearly you can have several bags of the same size and some may have a load of 15 – 20 kilos in weight and then there would be the others that could have 20 – 50 kilos of weight, suddenly the loader gets a severe jerk and injury. We introduced the bag limit of 25kgs and any heavier baggage would have to be tagged with a ‘heavy bag’ tag with its weight. Cabin baggage size was also reduced to ensure it fitted into the overhead lockers.”

In the mid-1990s, all member airlines of the AAGSC agreed to adopt a maximum checked baggage weight of 32kgs per single piece in order to reduce back injuries to loading staff. This recommendation was subsequently accepted by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and incorporated in their Airport Handling Manual (AHM) in 1999. This figure was reduced to 23kgs in 2008, and the change was again reflected in the IATA AHM of the same year, according to the AAGSC.

High visibility garments also received the scrutiny of the AAGSC. Prior to the AAGSC’s involvement, the Australian New Zealand standards required the minimum size of material for high visibility garments to be 4 square metres.

“These dimensions are OK for a large person; however in many cases on a small person it created a hazard as the vest could and would catch on door handles,” Ojczyk says. “We therefore managed to convince the Australian New Zealand standards committee to change the 4 square metres requirement to the minimum size of a person’ shirt size. We also introduced the additional high visibility colour as the requirement was that it had to be red or orange. This caused problems when a person was in the vicinity of an aircraft such as Qantas’ as the vest colour blended with the aircraft tail so you missed the person. Now we have two colours lime/yellow and orange/red with reflective tape strips.”

Additional key safety achievements of the AAGSC included the removal of book matches off aircraft due to a minor fire incident experienced by Ansett as well the standardisation of pushback procedures and general ramp operations. The AAGSC in its history has also been approached by many aviation organisations for assistance in resolving several safety issues, Ojczyk adds. These included UK ground handling agents who had seen items on the AAGSC web page and made contact to get details on particular issues that they were involved in. Representatives of the council have also delivered presentations and speeches at major aviation industry seminars worldwide, including the annual conference of the IATA International Ground Handling Council (IGHC).

Hogwood notes that another significant achievement was the production of a series of 24 recommended industry practices which are now available on the AAGSC’ website under the “Resources” header.

“These have been quite widely quoted within the industry, and used by other organisations” Hogwood says. An important initiative is also the annual safety award in which members select an outstanding safety innovation or service nominated by AAGSC members, notes Hogwood.

Current focus

The most recent safety seminar of the AAGSC was held in Brisbane, Australia in February 2016. It was attended by about 25-30 people and topics included the transfer of livestock, challenges in setting up regional operations, how to better control trailers and dollies to prevent disconnect, risks associated with working at height on FMC/Champs, safety management systems (SMS) and health and safety legislation. The group meets every quarter and the next safety seminars will be held this year in May, August and November.

Ivar Busk, who recently retired from SAS after a career spanning several decades with responsibilities in airside safety and aviation insurance, says that the meetings are now held only in Australia and New Zealand despite the region has several other places with an emerging aviation industry, such as Samoa and Fiji.

“Fiji was host for a seminar some years ago and the event was attended by a major group of participants,” Busk says. “No doubt Air New Zealand and Qantas have been the driving horses but many other airlines and aviation service providers should be more active.”

Busk notes that the AAGSC is the only such forum in the Oceanian region and it has developed and implemented new safety standards which have sometimes been adopted by other safety groups, like IATA’s, with regard to  positioning safety cones around aircraft.

“My opinion is the AAGSC should be much more credited for the work they do as many good initiatives have been raised via the AAGSC, FOD focus comes to mind; but as the area is not in the centre of the world it is difficult to recognise it more widely,” Busk says. “My membership dates back to the late 1990s and I found it very valuable to see how this other part of world acts. I also hope to bring some know-how from the European continent into AAGSC with my participation.”

Learning from collaboration

While the business environment is such that you need to compete, safety should never be an area of competition. The history of the AAGSC reveals that when competing service providers get together to work on safety the result is that there is a benefit for all as a stronger case can be raised to counterparts in the likes of regulatory bodies and changes be more thoroughly and widely implemented. The AAGSC has an established history and multiple regional and international initiatives have been similarly implemented more recently in the aircraft ground handling industry. While international industry standards are not yet fully defined one can hope that the very fact that the industry is more consistently working together will lead to the availability of such standards sooner rather than later.