Sustainability, safety and efficiency are trends dominating discussions today in the ground handling industry, and so too are the emerging technologies that can play a role in meeting operators’ evolving needs – but each provider has its own approach. William Hallowell talks GSE procurement with Swissport and Unifi
Total cost of ownership, maintenance and lifespan are important factors for handlers when procuring new assets – particularly considering the new age of ground support equipment that is emerging with the help of new technologies, enabling operators to streamline their airside activities. Indeed, these technologies, whether artificial intelligence, telemetry or automation, are proving exciting and popular tools for ramp operations today.
This new era, in which innovative solutions are so technology led, is timely for those with ageing GSE fleets. The US-based ground services provider Unifi is one operator looking to embrace the future.
“The GSE fleet we have today is fairly old and obsolete,” says Unifi’s director of GSE fleet strategy and engineering, Andrew Alexander. “Our equipment was procured 15 to 20 years ago, and a lot has changed in ground handling since then.”
Total cost of ownership and electrification
How does Unifi assess factors such as total cost of ownership and maintenance when procuring new equipment, then? Alexander tells Airside: “I know by model numbers what assets are obsolete in terms of what can’t support the current fleet of aircraft we serve today, and how old some of these assets are, so it’s easy to calculate total cost of ownership.
“What we typically do is pool all the data from our maintenance database and it will give me information about labour hours, parts and frequency of breakdowns or being out of service. We roll all this data up to depict trends.
“Certain model lines, for instance, just won’t work for us anymore. If we see that a particular unit reaches 40% to 50% of the overall cost of the equipment, then it’s targeted for removal.”
Lack of charging infrastructure is preventing ground handlers from going electric
According to David Fernandez, global head of fleet at Swissport, total cost of ownership and maintenance are two of the most important factors when procuring GSE. One way to minimise maintenance needs, he suggests, is through wider adoption of electric equipment given the bold claims by manufacturers that battery-powered GSE is virtually maintenance-free.
Fernandez says: “At Swissport, we are moving towards electric assets and are, of course, embracing claims of maintenance-free equipment, but there are some other aspects when considering thorough maintenance and question marks over durability that I have to assess. We are looking for durable and reliable equipment.
“We would like to see how these claims of low maintenance needs benefit our operations, not only from the cost side but also in terms of the capability of our teams to maintain these vehicles. We know conventional diesel units very well and they are more or less reliable, but we still have some questions to ask about electric equipment.”
The infrastructure challenge
Alexander, too, has reservations about wider adoption of electric ground support equipment. Though he is adamant about the benefits of battery power – both environmental and operational – lack of infrastructure remains the greatest hurdle to electrifying GSE fleets.
“Electric equipment does nobody any good if you can’t charge it,” he says, frustratedly. “But we have successfully done this at Salt Lake City and San Diego, which was the largest project we did, and some other smaller locations like Orange County. I’ve been working on the electrification of GSE since 2006.”
The challenge is that 100% electrification is still not an option, says Alexander, due to conflicts between stakeholders as to who should bear the financial responsibility for making the necessary charging infrastructure available. Fernandez agrees: “There are issues around communication.”
But there are greater concerns at Swissport. Fernandez stresses not only the lack of available charging infrastructure, but also the need for industry standardisation on batteries.
He tells Airside: “We have to consider what GSE manufacturers’ strategies are for electric GSE in terms of voltage. 80V seems to be the established measurement for low-duty equipment, but manufacturers have seen increasing demand for 400V batteries for heavy-duty GSE.
“We need to see manufacturers find consensus on this because this will allow not only us ground handlers but all stakeholders to better assess charging infrastructure requirements and the batteries needed to power electric GSE. Swissport is already investing a lot in charging infrastructure for electric equipment and I, personally, am not sure that some of that infrastructure will be adequate long-term.”
David Fernandez, Swissport
Therefore, Fernandez says he is “putting pressure” on the manufacturers to make clear what configurations they plan to work with in the long-term in order to better plan Swissport’s infrastructure needs.
Leveraging new technologies
As GSE manufacturers look to offer the latest technologies to the market, some handlers are grabbing hold of the opportunity to enhance their operations in terms of safety and efficiency. As dnata CEO Steve Allen revealed to Airside’s sister publication Airline Routes & Ground Services earlier this year: “Long-term, we need to shift to being more technology led.
“I think that’s in common with how the world is evolving, but certainly our industries have maybe lagged a bit behind in terms of being technology led. We’ve got tremendous opportunities with AI and robotics going forward, which will really assist in modern, efficient operations in the future.”
How, then, are other players reacting to the opportunity to utilise new technologies in the airside environment? Alexander admits he is a “really big fan” of artificial intelligence. “AI is the future,” he says.
Alexander reveals he recently met with one GSE manufacturer to discuss de-icing vehicles. “I looked at one of their fire trucks and said, ‘If we could take this and turn it into a de-icer, that would be fantastic’, and they were questioning, ‘How do we get the boom and everything else?’
“Then I said, ‘Well if you have AI, AI can recognise and learn aircraft wings, it can learn snow and frost.’ AI is great. You can basically point the de-icer in a location, the boom can reach the aircraft and AI will take over and de-ice your wing.”
Alexander also sees the potential of artificial intelligence in data collection, but says “there is still work to be done” to develop the technology in order to optimise Unifi’s operations – because it is not yet perfect.
Swissport, too, is cautiously approaching AI. According to Fernandez, Swissport’s strategy is to implement such technologies when a direct need for them to enhance operations is identified.
Fernandez states: “I fully subscribe to the words of our CEO Warwick Brady that manufacturers are putting the AI tag on all their equipment just to sell more of it. This is something as consumers, not even ground handlers, we need to be more conscious about.
“At the same time, we’re not going completely crazy by embracing every single new tech trend in the industry. Instead, we’re looking at it from the perspective of, ‘What problems do we need to solve?’, rather than procuring new equipment with all these tools just for the sake of having them.
“Manufacturers are putting the AI tag on all their equipment just to sell more of it,” says Fernandez
“You could have maybe 20 or 30 apps on your phone, when in reality you may only regularly use five or six of them,” Fernandez says. “It’s not responsible to ask the manufacturers for all these gadgets and then neglect the real problems you need to solve in your operations.”
He adds: “At Swissport we have outlined clear use cases for these smart technologies, and we welcome AI if it can actively contribute to safer operations for our employees and to reducing incidents of aircraft damage. For the time being, these are the AI capabilities that we are keen to adopt in our equipment.”
Lead times are still a challenge
Among the challenges facing ground handlers today, workforce recruitment and retention being one of them, lead times for new assets and spare parts remain a burden.
For Unifi, pre-pandemic lead times sat at around 90 days for traditional units and 120 days for electric GSE. Currently, “we’re talking about six to nine months”, says Alexander. “Most of our GSE comes from overseas – at least all the parts do. Charlatte are in France, TLD are across the pond as well. BYD are in California, but everything comes from China.
“JBT are in Astoria [in Washington state]. They supply our electric towbarless tractors, and lead times for those are basically a year.”
Supply chain shortages have also impacted lead times post-Covid but have seen some improvement recently, Alexander says. “What’s happened is that GSE manufacturers’ production lines were not set up for the post-Covid electrification boom. They were set up for diesel equipment.”
Swissport also faces the same challenge. Fernandez asserts that, although GSE manufacturers’ orderbooks have rebounded since the pandemic, “lead times have not been very good this year”.
In 2024, he tells Airside, Swissport has ordered more equipment than the last three or four years together, as is the case for many other handlers. From conversations with the OEMs, Fernandez says suppliers are conscious about lead times and are upping capacity to improve the situation.
“Although manufacturers are doing their best to mitigate the challenge, the results are poor. To wait 12 to 18 months for an asset is too long.
Lead times for spare parts and new assets remain a burden for ground handlers
“But for spare parts, it’s a bit different. Though the suppliers know where the weak points are for their assets, if they receive a lot of orders for a replacement motor or bonnet, at least where we have relevant presence, we get serviced okay,” he says.
Nevertheless, the ground handler is doing what it can from its end to mitigate the challenge. Swissport has a global management system that it is encouraging its teams to use to create spare parts inventories and is therefore gaining more experience on which parts have a lower or higher consumption. This is enabling the company to cut down lead times for parts.
Shifting needs
Ground handlers today are increasingly emphasising their focus on sustainable, safe and efficient operations on the ramp. Naturally, therefore, their needs are changing too.
Where sustainability is concerned, Swissport’s strategy is to “stagger” GSE electrification.
This means focusing on transitioning smaller units first, such as baggage tractors, so the ground handler can collect the data it needs to answer the questions Fernandez previously alluded to.
According to Fernandez, Swissport is continuing to electrify its global fleet in line with airports’ charging infrastructure availability. He assures: “We are embracing electrification.”
And as far as new technologies are concerned, it’s a matter of cost and capability. Since 2019, Swissport has adopted equipment fitted with anti-collision systems as a matter of prioritising improving safety, particularly for equipment that operates within close proximity of aircraft. This includes belt loaders, hi-loaders and passenger stairs.
“Swissport has a quality and safety culture. We aim for zero aircraft damage and we are tracking improvements on this on a weekly basis. But, again, it’s about cost,” Fernandez stresses.
“Can you imagine a belt loader with LiDAR sensors, radars and fully automated docking? Yes, but at what cost? It will be very expensive, so we have to balance operational requirements with costs.”
