Safety is the number one priority for all handlers and the strong desire to reduce damage to aircraft on the ground is an ongoing goal shared by all handlers.
ISAGO (IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations) is IATA's solution to this problem but is it the right approach? To quote from the IATA 2006 annual report, "The programme analyses ground-handling processes to identify the cause and effect of ground damage. It then helps in developing operating procedures and a safety culture to reduce damage and associated costs."
I do not think our industry needs a third party organisation to "identify the cause and effect of ground damage".
Many handlers will argue that if handling profit margins remain thin, resources cannot be devoted to additional training because the ground handling industry, as a global employer, cannot attract and retain high calibre ramp workers.
Does the ground handling industry need ISAGO? If not, what are the alternatives?
Tim Ornellas
Ground Handling International
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About Me
- Tim Ornellas
- Tim is the publisher of Ground Handling International. The magazine was first published in 1995.
4 comments:
Ground handlers face more and more a complex dangerous environment on the ramp influenced by a high number of single isolated processes and different service partners working on the same event.
Optimising turnarounds with an optimum of ressources in a competitive market is therefore a daily challenge for all service providers involved executing their assigned tasks in a correct and safe manner.
In this respect it is clear that processes, work orders and ops regulations play an absolut important role. With IGOSA there is certainly a tool available which can help to evaluate gaps in the safety management system of a service providers organisation.
But without the awareness that every single individual working on the ramp with his personal behaviour is a modul of the whole safety set up and therefore the awarenes that if one modul fails the whole setup is endangered, is something which is ankered in the company and leadership culture.
Safety management is a continous management and leadershipship task.
To act safe, to assess the risks, not to allow to bypass procedures" by good reasons " and not to forget to value safe behaviour is something which may heave been forgotten over the years but it gains more and more importance on the leadership side.
Teamleaders and shiftleaders in this branch have been educated in the past years to ontime performance and to gain of groundtime. Of course they were expected to do it safe, but was there always a backing for them on the safety side?
Nobody comes to work with the intention to damage an aircraft or to injure himself.
If i am not convinced that i have to follow the procedures because i trust more my personal experience, if i as employee will be not corrected by my teamleaders to do different, how should i then learn to act safe ?
There are always good excuses not to follow procedures.Timepressure and external influences are the most common.If this will be accepted how should we achieve then best practice on the safety side.
Control tools are fine but we are talking about cultural change of handling companies and continous improvement. A proper working safety management system with a proper risk assesment system are todays business card of an established airport service provider.
When it comes to the airline we are talking here about a kind of common responsibility between airline and handling agent.
Safety is a common task and will benefit both sides in the end. Especially in the low cost area we find good examples of going along together on safety improvement by analysing the processes and adapting best practices to it. I think it is also a good example that pressure on price must not result on a compromize on safety. Communication and trust in the people which are involved in the frontline of this business is a good first step
So for me it is not the question if we need external tools.
It is more the question what are the required standards and the selfunderstanding of the handling companies working in this environment and how the management is capable to work on this.
it's a good idea to create a blog for the ground handling issues, good luck and i will add the adress on my favorites aviation blogs links.
regards
anouar.org
Congratulations!
GHI, its an excellent idea.
under-the-wing guys will now hv a notice board to share their best ideas, about loading the wrong ake, boarding the wrong pax, duplicate check ins...!
how about some local ramp jokes?
bye
sumit DEL apt
I think IGOSA and other internal control tools are an effective way of identifying your vulnerabilities..damage is often caused by employees not following procedure..over 50% of managment do not follow procedure for the reasons that aviation scout says..there are always good reasons..a program that is industry wide and driven is one that will allows clear objectives with identifiable corrective actions..
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