AERO Specialties

Any member of an airside ground crew, which certainly includes the management, will tell you that the work can be pretty high-stress. They are operating under two mandates which are not only often in competition, they can seem fairly contradictory. Those mandates are: “Do the job as quickly as possible!” And, “Be thorough, complete checklists, double-check, make no mistakes, be careful, and be safe.” Although both of those priorities make sense from the perspective of the airlines and those airside serving at the pleasure of those airlines, delays on the ground can cost millions—literally. Not even just big delays. According to an industry report, a large airline loses as much as $35 million (USD) annually for every additional five minutes of ground time. According to the same report, it’s also pointed out that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that the aviation industry would save $4 billion annually by taking preventative safety meas...

The ground support industry is a particularly complex, often stressful, fast-moving, and extremely important industry. No one in the industry has to be told that the stakes are huge. The airlines need their planes fueled, checked, deiced, powered, loaded, unloaded, etc. Every extra minute on the ground is costing them money. Ground crew, meanwhile, need to remain safe, careful, vigilant, and be thorough. The consequences of mistakes range from lost luggage and furious passengers to those better not mentioned. So how does an industry with so much at stake strike a balance between speed and thorough safety? According to an increasing number of airports large and small, the answer is real-time digital fleet telematics and tracking. Telematics and Tracking Fleet telematics and tracking is the use of a digital system to monitor and track the location, use status, maintenance status, and similar information. So a member of the ground crew could use a digital devi...