Head of Global Airside & Standards, DHL Aviation
By Neale Millett
 My thanks to Alain for allowing me to air my, probably well know, views in the Aviance forum. I would love to be able to say that what follows is all new but I’m afraid that, like a stuck record, I do tend to repeat myself, especially on my pet subject, safety.
There seems to be far more focus on ground safety in recent years and I see that Michael Feldman from IATA has, in his contribution, outlined the commendable initiatives that this august body is taking to raise awareness within the industry, IOSA & ISAGO audits, data collection and all those good things.
Now I fully support those initiatives, in fact I have even been involved with some of them, however this is all very good at the upper levels. ISAGO will drill down far deeper that IOSA but audits are only snapshots of a date & time. Safety on the ramp, not only of aircraft but, and probably more importantly, safety of your most expensive asset, staff, should not be just a case of bringing things up to speed for the audit.
I see two major barriers to ramp safety at the moment; the first is financial which, in itself, is ironic in that the carriers are complaining about the high cost of ground damage while continuing to negotiate down to rock bottom any handling costs. The second is for higher aircraft utilisation which is increasing pressure for tighter turnrounds, not only for the LCCs but also some of the major carriers.
Let’s take those in order. As anybody who knows me will tell you, I have been very vocal on this subject of fair pricing for years. Now I’m not arguing for higher costs, I wouldn’t be that sacrilegious, but, if the price is driven too low, one of the first costs the bean counters will cut will be the training budget, closely followed by capital investment. I needn’t spell it out surely; it’s obvious that ground damage will occur when you have badly trained staff operating very old equipment.
As for the tighter turnrounds, these are not a problem if properly controlled but in these days of outsourcing, all the players in the game, fuellers, cleaners, loaders etc., are all trying to get their bit of the job done in the fastest possible time with no-one having overall coordination responsibility. Bring back the ‘red cap’ say I!
The cost of ground damage and staff injury has been quoted at various levels and I’m sure you’ve heard most of them. If we want to reduce these wasted dollars, both the carriers and handling agents must work together in a fair and equitable way. Training standards must be of the highest level and made readily available to all. Certain carriers insist that their handling agent staff must pass certain courses and then charge a small fortune for the pleasure of educating the HA’s personnel. I never have understood the logic in that one but will admit that their standards are exemplary.
The sharing of information and training resources freely can only improve our industry’s safety record, an improvement that is overdue. We can only learn from others experiences yet there is a general reluctance to share details of incidents due to the inevitable fight with the loss adjusters and the impression that it will tarnish the company’s reputation. In these days of the internet, any carrier or handling agent is naïve if they think they can cover these things up.
One final comment before I finish; when are we, as an industry going to agree on common standards? The fact that handlers have to check the colour of the aircraft before they know which set of rules to use when handling the same type of aircraft can only add to the risk of damage. The IATA AHM publishes best recommended practice yet many variations exist, some for good reason, in which case maybe we should revise the AHM, but many others because of a knee jerk reaction to an incident.
Whatever our commercial differences, competition and pressures, we will only achieve a reduction in ground damage costs if we work together and fully cooperate at an operational level. I’ll leave you with that thought.
Stay safe.
Neale is a member of the IGHC Board and past chairman of their Airside Safety Working Group. He’s also Chairman of the IATA Load Control Working Group and writes regular safety articles for industry magazines.
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