Damage to aircraft on the ramp cost the medium sized regional airline that I work for £3.5 million in 2000. We had approximately 25 hits at an average cost per hit of £130,000. The costs included loss of revenue while aircraft were out of service, ferrying and re-positioning costs, passenger transport, compensation and refreshment bills, repair work and materials, knock-on effects on the rest of the aircraft in the fleet to maintain the flying programme, chartering costs where another aircraft had to be brought in to fly the sector etc., etc., etc.
The reason for all these incidents is that ground handling is totally undervalued and inadequately controlled within the aviation industry as a whole. In Flight operations and Engineering, safety is achieved by being tightly regulated by the CAA to well defined standards that are regularly audited. The same cannot be said for Ramp operations. On most airport ramps there is little or no control over working practices, too few people working to totally unrealistic turnround times, with frankly laughable levels of training and competency for the jobs they do. Until the CAA and the aviation industry realises that thewholeoperation needs to be properly managed and regulated, including ground handling, these unnecessary losses will continue to mount, and people will continue to be seriously injured and occasionally killed. In my opinion there is a need for ramp operatives to become properly licensed and trained in the same way that engineers and pilots need to be properly trained and licensed for the roles they perform. And if you think this sounds like a ridiculous suggestion with no hope of being taken seriously by the bean counters - think again. The losses quoted above due to ramp damage equalled 43% of the airline's profit that year! Somebody please wake up the accountants and let's get a grip of ground handling.