aex
Valid points.
BA were one of the first legacy carriers to totally outsource non-hub operations, they did it first in the UK around 1983 and then others followed. However, they only did where they were satisified with the standards and then a change of policy saw the programme grind to halt. Around 2005 BA then moved to permit ground handling companies to self certify their own training; another words, the customer airline accepts that the training given by their handling company is suitable and sufficient and does not impose their own training structure. Not many other legacy carriers do this.
Part of the problem with Italy and other parts of Europe (e.g. Spain, Portugal) has been protectionism by their Governments in not allowing EU owned ground handling businesses licences at airports - a lot would not grant a licence unless the majority shareholder of the company was a national company - which went directly against all the EU legislation. This meant JV's with local companies, many of which were just not prepared to surrender the operational management to the 'minority partner'; nor prepared to invest the pro-rata monies needed and as such, were just not viable. I've worked with such business plans and know of some of the issues. TUPE is also a BIG negative if you are taking over handling from a very inefficient operation as you are saddled with the costs from day one and then have to manage them out; in some EU countries this is nigh on impossible.
The expansion of LCC's and increase in labour costs have driven the market which is why the big 3 global handling companies have expanded; although Servisair (who owned GlobeGround Italia for a time before selling it on the ATA) seem to be receding at the moment whilst Menzies and Swissport continue to grow.
I think a lot of passengers (and possible airline staff) would be truly surprised to know just how many of those uniformed 'airline' staff are actually employed by a ground handling company.
My personal view is that airlines, particularly the newer LCC's are good at managing their flight operations and maximising thier yield; where they have tried to 'do the ground' the majority have come unstuck and have not achieved the costs they believed they could; legacy carriers are tied up with 1960's labour agreements and need massive changes for today's avaiation environment. So the independent ground handling companies will continue to grow and take market share; the challenge will be how to continue a revenue stream as more and more airlines use on-line check-in and go to 'per checked bag' charges.
But then, aviation has always been a challenge....
GH