G R O U N D H A N D L I N G
“At Munich we have five handling agents for business
aviation. But at Riga you cannot even have one because of
the way the directive has been implemented.
“We have to prioritize safety when revising the Directive,
but the Commission should also ensure that it has a
standardized implementation throughout member countries.”
Andreas Becker, founder and CEO of the German
Aviation Service agrees. He says, “The main problem with
the Directive is that it has been designed for commercial
airlines. It was not designed to regulate anything regarding
business aircraft. We work at 10 different airports and we
see different applications of the Directive.
“At some we have total freedom to carry out all the
services we want to and at some we are limited to essential
services like passenger transport. We see that the airports
that have their own interests involved restrict us more.
“The Directive should also regulate access to airport
infrastructure. At some privatized German airports we have
run into problems where there is not a fair distribution of
facilities that we need access to deliver our services.”
Gradual change
The calls for changes to the Ground Handling Directive
are not new. In 2011 there was an attempt to make
amendments, but the revision was abandoned because
there was a lack of agreement on the changes from
within the aviation industry.
Pekka Hietanen is policy officer in the
director general for mobility and transport at
56 | BU S INE S S A I R P O RT INT E RNAT I ONA L A P R I L 2 0 2 0
the EC. He says that the EU’s Directorate-General started
looking again at revising Directive 96/97 in September
2019. “The Directive has worked pretty well, but there are
problems with how some member states are applying it,”
he says.
“Member states can limit it to two providers and there
is nothing the EC can do at the moment. We’re currently
evaluating a proposal for changes. An impact assessment
on policy options takes about a year and a half.”
A public consultation about the Ground Handling
Directive closes this month. The EC then intends to publish
an evaluation document in Jan 2021. From there the work
starts to revise the Directive.
“I can’t promise a new Directive. All I can say is the EC
has already had to withdraw one proposal and I know it
doesn’t want to do it again,” says Hietanen.
Specialization
According to Terry Yeomans, programme director at IS-BAH,
regulators often conflate ground handling for business
aviation with ground handling for airlines. But business
aviation involves more complex operations, with multiple
types of aircraft. Yeomans says, “In the past, the worst
scenario when planning a flight was that you would be
handled by an airline handling company. You knew it was
going to be a problem. I want my aircraft to be looked after
by a company that specializes in that aircraft.”
Yeomans believes changes to the Directive should aim to
prevent large organizations from dominating the market, with “We have to
prioritize safety
when revising the
Directive”
Juergen Wiese, director of
aviation for BMW
Right: Steps have been taken
to liberalize the ground
handling market in Europe
so private companies can
deliver more services
(Image: Swissport)