What Ramp Services Your Potential Aviation Service Provider Should Offer? With Top 5 Tasks

Do you know that the aviation industry employs almost 87.7 million people across the globe? Some serve this sector directly, while others contribute through the supply chain, employees’ spending, and other routes. A massive number of professionals in these statistics are the ground staff. They are accountable for doing a wide range of on-ground jobs to make the traveling experience of your aircraft passengers hassle-free. So, if you are an airport operator or airline company, you must opt for passenger-centric aviation services to enhance the quality of experience of your customers. But the question is how to get started or choose the right aviation service provider?

For that, you need to understand various things in the first place, such as what ground handling is, why it is crucial, and what kind of ramp services it includes. So, let’s see all of that one by one:

What is Ground Handling?

In layman’s words, you can interpret ground handling as a collective term for a wide range of services that facilitate the take-off and landing of flights. It includes aircraft ground repositioning, preparation for departure and arrival of airplanes, and the involvement of customer service and ramp functions. 

In short, you can understand that most of the things that get carried out in the background to make the traveling experience of your passengers enjoyable come under “ground handling.” So, now you must have got a rough idea of what you should expect from a customer-centric aviation service provider regarding ground handling? Now, let’s see:

What are some tasks that ground handling includes?

1. Placing readable materials on the flight, such as magazines, brochures, and newspapers

2. Packing the meals for your prospective passengers

3. Cleaning the toilets to their best level 

Why is ground handling so important?

Ground handling is imperative for all airport operators and airlines companies. The ground staff ensures their flights take off and land on time. They issue all boarding cards correctly and then check all the luggage for security. Once the security checks are complete, the ground handling staff safely loads all the bags onto the right aircraft. 

Not only that, but a specialized team also ensures that your aircraft cleaning tasks got correctly completed and the right amount of aviation turbine fuel got transferred to your airplane. Besides that, a dedicated aviation service provider will always make sure that their ground handling executives supply enough aviation fuel to your aircraft, so it comes back from a passenger terminal after it took off. 

Now tell us, do you know what does ICAO means? It stands for International Civil Aviation Organization that says ground handling is quite a necessary service for the arrival and departure of aircraft. In other words, it refers to scores of essential activities behind the scenes to ensure smooth on-boarding and off-boarding of passengers of an airplane. However, having a trained workforce at your disposal is necessary to ensure that all your on-ground processes get executed without a hitch.

Keep in mind that if you hire a well-known aviation service firm for your flight operation needs, be rest assured that a solid team of ground handling personnel will work for you who got trained in the multiple types of check-in systems and the handling of dangerous goods. 

What is Ramp Service?

You can perceive ramp service as a group of tasks that involves the movement of luggage to and from the aircraft to the baggage area and the parking of airplanes correctly to load and unload passengers. That’s not all; it also includes the refuelling, parking, and maintenance of the aircraft. Some highly-handy machines that ramp functions require are lift trucks, belt loaders, tugs, and bag carts. 

What do ramp services comprise?

1. Marshalling

It is a process in which ground handling executives direct the movement of airplanes at an airport for parking purposes. As soon as the aircraft heads to the stand, the vehicle allows electronic Stand Entry Guidance Systems or the on-ground staff to control its movement. 

2. Chocking 

It refers to inserting a block against the aircraft’s wheels to prevent it from moving when the airplane is on-stand. Besides that, you can also leverage some external services such as connecting or disconnecting the passenger bridge or boarding stairs, or ground electrical service as and when required. 

3. Catering

It involves removing catering trolleys and oven inserts from the inbound flights and boarding the catering materials on the outbound flight. Apart from that, galley and bar stock also get refilled according to the need. 

Here, outbound flight refers to the flight to the destination. In contrast, inbound flight means the flight back to the origin city. 

4. Aircraft cleaning 

It comprises the cleaning of the cabin, lavatories, and the galley counter surfaces. Additionally, the on-ground professionals also empty the garbage containers and remove unnecessary materials from the aircraft. 

5. Baggage handling

It is one of the critical activities in the ramp services where the ground staff has to unload the baggage or freight from the inbound airplanes using split loaders, baggage belts, or fork trucks. In addition to that, they also load the passenger bags and cargo on the outbound airplanes. 

Summing-up

We hope you learned several things in this write-up, including the definition of ground handling, its importance, ramp service, and the tasks it involves. So, if you want to get excellent airport operation services, reach out to the best aviation service company in Kuwait.