AERO Specialties

Every year, the airlines lose billions of dollars to accidents and other damage incidents. Beyond the financial risk and loss, accidents and damage incidents are responsible for a number of collateral and peripheral consequences. Those consequences range from passenger inconvenience and loss of business to, far worse, injury or death. Unfortunately, as airsides at airports and aerodromes are generally busy, borderline chaotic places, with ground support equipment (GSE) like aircraft pushback tractors and baggage carts bustling past massive airliners, accidents and damage incidents can have a lot of sources. That also leaves airport management, contractors, and third parties vulnerable to liability costs. The good news is: most of those can be mitigated or avoided altogether.   Ramp Damage: Towing and Collision Incidents According to the research, the total cost of ramp damage alone to the airlines is around $10 billion every year. The average cost of each a...

To some degree, asking whether or not the future of ground support equipment (GSE) will be electric is moot. Much of it already is. Commuters are now used to electric vehicles (EV) ferrying people and cargo around inside airports, and they’re becoming an increasingly common feature of the airside workspace. There are certainly a number of obvious advantages to GSE going electric, but the transition is not without challenges as well, particularly in the short-term. The question for the aviation industry is whether or not the transition to electric aircraft tugs and lav carts is worth the necessary modifications. Or, is the electrification of aviation an inevitability regardless of preference? The Trend As mentioned, there’s no question which direction the wind is blowing. Commercial and public transport across business sectors across the world are transitioning to EVs in earnest. And it’s happening fairly aggressively in many cases. Ten years ago, diesel vehicles...