A380 Ground Handling

[Wiley]

I don’t know whether this has been covered elsewhere, (and I am hoping this won’t degenerate into a standard Boeing versus Airbus slanging match), but yesterday I was speaking with a senior engineer who is involved with the introduction of the A380 into the airline I work for.

He brought up a few points I have to admit I had not considered. Apparently, the megabus will have eleven (!) ground handling vehicles attach themselves to it during a standard turnaround if the operator has any hope of getting a turnaround done in less than two hours. The vehicles that will service the upper deck will have to be specially designed (and very – staggeringly – expensive), with all sorts of costly extras to allow for health and safety requirements for vehicles that can be elevated to the heights they will be required to reach.

Access to the upper deck presents the caterers, cleaners, etc with some unique problems. Even allowing for the staggered door design, (ie, an upper deck door cannot be immediately above a lower deck door to allow for evacuation), it will not be possible to arm the upper doors with catering vehicles positioned at lower doors. This will present some problems with pax boarding or being on board during refuelling. (Airbus’ answer to this problem apparently was not to board the upper deck pax until the fuelling was complete, but I imagine the problem could be avoided by having enough aerobridges attached or using the doors on the other side.)

Getting the high vehicles to the doors is no simple matter, particularly the door immediately behind the wings. The vehicles will have 1 metre clearance on the engines and then will have to be manoeuvred into place with some finesse as they avoid the all composite wing trailing edges. I forget exactly what he said was involved, but the final metre or so before reaching the upper door will involve stopping while some part of the special vehicle is swung into place above the wing trailing edge.

The whole aft end of the aircraft is composite, and no engineering manual exists (or will exist for approx four years) on how to repair the composite structure should it be damaged by a catering truck (an eventuality that is so certain I wish I could buy a lottery ticket with those odds). Airbus will have a team on standby 24 hours a day to handle any such problem on an ad hoc basis.

I know Luddites (like me) have moaned “we’ll all be rooned” every time any new piece of technology has been introduced from the time of the crossbow. However, having said that, I can’t help but think that the Airbus spin doctors are going to need to be particularly slick in selling the virtues of the megabus to a sceptical public who already moan about long delays at baggage pickup and customs - and perhaps even more sceptical bean counters in many of the airlines it hopes to sell its product to.

I know ticket prices will be the ultimate arbiter – if airlines can offer cheaper seats because of the economies of scale the megabus represents, the public will put up with anything – but a couple of mega delays affecting many passengers after a poorly paid caterer/driver screws up in delicately manoeuvring his truck into place will very quickly have the bean counters reassessing their bottom lines.

Which makes me wonder if the megabus won’t go the way of the MD11 – great freighter, too fiddly for efficient pax work. Ducking behind the parapet as I prepare to face the inevitable incoming from the Europhiles.

[Swedish Steve]

I'm afraid operators will be lucky if they complete pax boarding in that timeframe. ;)
We transit a B744 with around 340 pax all off clean cater all on in 1hr 15mins without problem. The A380 will carry around 500 pax. I would have thought 2 hrs was ample with sufficient resources.

[Packsonflight]

Quote "The whole aft end of the aircraft is composite, and no engineering manual exists (or will exist for approx four years) on how to repair the composite structure should it be damaged by a catering truck"
Funny, because the fuselage is manufactured of GLARE and it is only fully composite aft of the rear pressure bulkhead. No catering trucks there.
This was done so because the airlines originally told Airbus that they did not want a composite fuselage for the fear of clashes with catering trucks.
Now Boeing is selling the airlines the idea of all composite fuselage called 787

[Volume]

The vehicles will have 1 metre clearance on the engines and then will have to be manoeuvred into place with some finesse as they avoid the all composite wing trailing edges.
You are talking about different sides of the wing, for the doors in front of the wing, the inner engines are quite close. For the doors aft of the wing probably the flap track fairings are critical (that´s why their tips are painted red (http://www.airliners.net/open.file/958673/L/) at the moment...). The trailing edges of the flaps (three each side) are aluminum, the skin is composite. So a minor hit would probably just dent the aluminum end profile, a major one would require extensive repair.
For catering the upper deck, an optional trolley lift is available, I´ll bet it will be used quite frequently instead of using special upper deck trucks.
One benefit of the A380 size is that the all composite tail section is well above the ground, so you will need a huge truck to hit it ;)
The whole aft end of the aircraft is composite, and no engineering manual exists (or will exist for approx four years) on how to repair the composite structure should it be damaged by a catering truck
As already said, all the fuselage sections containing doors used during turnaraound are made from Glare. Repair can be done using more or less the same technique as for conventional aluminum. Only the unpressurized tail section is carbon fibre, and not as prone to accidental damage as the area around the doors.
The belly area of the fuselage is aluminum with welded stringers, which is also repaired using conventional technique.

[HZMIS]

As a ramp trainer for BA I find this very interesting and many important points have been highlighted. I have yet to see any of the usual publications feature any particular or specific kit for the aircraft. It seems in general that companies will use a lot of existing stuff from the main deck and take most things up the stairs as happens with the 744. Catering will have lifts installed to cater the upper deck so this is not a problem. At the end it is just another a/c albeit a larger one. Talk of 2 hour turnarounds I feel are optimistic particularly at older airports that have merely extended existing stands, at LHR the BAA have created two new stands but I do not think much thought has gone into the problems as highlighted of the fleet of vehicles needed to service the beast. As with the 747 it will take at least 2-3 years to bed in and resolve the problems that occur.

[groundbum]

almost doubling the number of passengers means almost twice as many passengers will be "lost" in the shops etc. Is there any clever way to find an individuals passengers bags to offload? I can see loads of delays whilst 500 people's bags are dug over looking for the miscreants bags!

Do airlines currently use a tracking system to at least suggest which hold the bag may be in? Maybe the check-in desk could add a digital camera that takes a pic of each bag, so that a basic colour/description could be issued? I should patent that idea.....

Simon

[Sir George Cayley]

Recently watched a demo of a 380 capable caterin scissor lift being extended to operationg height. Went throught the cloudbase!:eek:

No seriously folks, most reactions were along the lines of " you wouldn't get me up there" and " it's a long way to fall!"

Impressive engineering though carrying things up the stairs seems more pragmatic though a tad time consuming.

When a loco gets one at 600 pax at least they won't have food as a problem.

Sir George Cayley

[tom de luxe]

Airbus use baggage containers - and yes, you would usually know which container a specific bag is in. So once that container is offloaded, which shouldn't take too long, you have to find the bag in the container. Same for the A 380 as for your A 320, A 330 or whatever.
BTW: Airbus' official view on this can be found here in their "Airport Planning Manual" (http://www.content.airbusworld.com/SITES/Technical_Data/docs/AC/DATA_CONSULT/AC_A380.pdf). so in an ideal airbus world, you'll have a 90 min turnaround. Yikes!

[PAXboy]

Outsider speaking: My guess is that it will be quicker to get the catering vehicle set for the lower deck and funnel the upper deck carts trhough it and into the lift, rather than having to reposition the vehicle for the upper deck. There could be problems of clutter on teh ground with the stabilising poles/legs of vehicles having to be much further out than before. Even if it takes time to lift/drop the carts on the internal hoist, it will be faster and safer than moving the vehicle.


As for loading us lot. Across 35 years I still see 744s being loaded, essentially, one-at-a-time. The front bridge does J + C and the aft ramp does the rest. That is so silly that I confidently expect the same thing to happen on 380s! :hmm:

[Irish Steve]

So once that container is offloaded, which shouldn't take too long, you have to find the bag in the container. Same for the A 380 as for your A 320, A 330 or whatever.


Sorry, but there's a BIG difference between a 320 & a 280. The first is that there's a lot more bins, and depending on the system being used to track the bags, that can mean a lot more bingo cards to search to find the bag, before even deciding which bin to take out. Then there's the slight problem that if there are bins in the front and back, and most of the front bins have to come out, there might be weight and balance issues, a 380 sitting on it's tail is not going to be a pretty sight.

Another problem is that it's entirely possible that if there's more than 1 bag to take out, it's going to mean moving a load of bins and then stripping more than 1 bin. If the aircraft is reasonably full, and the strip decision is close to departure time, most of the bin dollies have probably already been comandeered to go to another flight as there's usually a shortage of the things, so the bins being moved have to be put somewhere to get the rest out.

I've done this sort of thing on 777's, and 747's, and it takes a LOT longer than it does on a 320. The worst is something like a 767-400 where the bags are in LD8 cans, as there's close on 100 bags to each bin. I don't know what size bin the 380 is going to use, if they've come up with a new design to avoid using 2 across the width, that means that maybe 4 or 5 bins have to come out, after the high loader has been repositioned at the door and set up correctly before the required bags can be found, and that takes time, in some cases, lots of it.

A few years ago, I was SLF on a DC10-10 out of LGW to MCO, and they ended up stripping the entire hold to check the bag count, as the security check ( american carrier pre 9-11) and the check in count was different. Turned out it was a handling agent screw up, they'd double tagged a bag.

Took close on 3 hours to offload all the bins, check them, find the error and then put them back into the bins and reload, and we were sat on the aircraft watching all of this going on. Not impressive. Then to add pain to injury, it went tech at the holding point, which delayed us even more

[Swedish Steve]

Is there any clever way to find an individuals passengers bags to offload? Simon
Yes they are called bingo cards. When the bags are loaded into the containers, a piece of the tag is peeled off and placed on a bingo card. This is just a piece of A4 card wiith numbered boxes on it for these labels. One card per container and one sticker per box and you can easily see how many bags in the container. An LD3 takes around 50 bags. When a passenger no shows you can easily pick which container their bags are in, but then it is always the container that went in first, so you have to take off the others to get to it.

[HZ123]

Just to make matters worst all a/c at T5 will be containerised including the A319's. I think some of these offload times are wildely optimistic.

[Globaliser]

Yes they are called bingo cards. When the bags are loaded into the containers, a piece of the tag is peeled off and placed on a bingo card. This is just a piece of A4 card wiith numbered boxes on it for these labels. One card per container and one sticker per box and you can easily see how many bags in the container. An LD3 takes around 50 bags. When a passenger no shows you can easily pick which container their bags are in, but then it is always the container that went in first, so you have to take off the others to get to it.From another outsider: Can it be that difficult to have a system where such a manual bingo card system is replaced by a barcode scan? If it worked, it would cut down the amount of time spent searching (although I can't help thinking that we're only talking about something like 50% more bags than a 744). Or would it be too prone to error?

[HZ123]

Barcode readers are already in place at major airports. Bin numbers of bag locations are known but it is still the time taken to rumove these items in the event of a AAA failure.

[Hand Solo]

Just to make matters worst all a/c at T5 will be containerised including the A319's

Unless we're going to by some nifty new container handling equipment you won't be using containers on the 319. The IAE enginers extend too far forward of the wing to allow the current vehicles to get to the forward cargo door.

[In trim]

Hand Solo....you've answered your own question. Clearance for container access to the A319 is incredibly tight, but there are 'slimline' hi-loaders out there which do the job and drastically reduce the chance of ground damage.

[Irish Steve]

Can it be that difficult to have a system where such a manual bingo card system is replaced by a barcode scan? If it worked, it would cut down the amount of time spent searching (although I can't help thinking that we're only talking about something like 50% more bags than a 744). Or would it be too prone to error?

There's a snag, called the requirement to have the equipment and the staff trained and skilled in using it on every bin loading point in the baggage hall, and the handling companies won't pay for it, so it's not happening. If Bar code scanning was also used on bulk loaded flights, it would make finding a bag on something like a 757-300 a lot simpler, but again, special equipment, and extra staff, and no one is prepared to pay for it any more.

This might change now that the airlines may have to pay for delays, in that a handling delay might be attributable to the airline, but someone is going to have to take a case to the courts and win to set a precedent. If that happens, then things might change very quickly,

As far as I'm concerned, there's a good case to be made for not checking the bag in to the system and loading it on to the aircraft until the passenger is at a point where they can no longer be "lost", but that's going to require a substantial change in attitude and airport systems and internal layouts to make it work. If the airlines could depart on time without passengers that have not arrived at the gate, then maybe things would change.

Then again, who says that the check in has to be done at the airport. This is a fundamental change of approach, but how about an off airport site (or even several sites) for each airline, where the passenger is checked in, and goes to an appropriate holding area for their flight, and then is transported from the off airport site to the aircraft, with the bags also on, or closely attached, to the same vehicle. If the passenger doesn't get to the final loading/boarding area, the bag doesn't travel.

This concept would not work so well if there's a lot of interlining, but we're now seeing the concept of point to point with operators like Ryanair, who won't even through check bags for their own flights. On that basis, several small terminals could work a damn sight better than one massive building with all the infrastructure and other issues of getting people and bags from one place to another.

Ok, there's customs and immigration issues to consider, but there has to be a better way than the rugby scrum that happens almost every day now at Dublin, and it's going to get worse before it gets better!!

Dublin Airport authority would hate this, as they'd no longer have an excuse to run the largest pub in Ireland, but at least this way, we might be able to get back to checking in an hour before the flight instead of having to arrive at the airport up to 3 hours before a 30 minute flight!!!!

[Flap15Geardown]

I can't see what the problem is. In the UK there isn't the choice, the DfT make it mandatory to have an approved bag tracking system. You can only go manual and bingo a flight if it fails. At the end of the day the cost is minimal, training required is very little, time saved looking for bags is enormous. Extra staff, you must be joking. It takes more staff to bingo and count for the paperwork than it does to scan and print.

[LBIA]

Hand Solo: Unless we're going to by some nifty new container handling equipment you won't be using containers on the 319. The IAE enginers extend too far forward of the wing to allow the current vehicles to get to the forward cargo door.

Hi

How come bmi british midland can use containers on there new A319's?

I have seem them been used up at Leeds on the bmi Heathrow run. Don't BA have the handling equipment yet?

[Flap15Geardown]

Most scheduled airlines I see with A319's use ULD's. It only charter aircraft that get bulk loaded

[moggiee]

Scare stories of long, long, long turnarounds are just that at this time - scare stories. I don't remember but I'm sure people said the same of the 744 - they always do in this industry because each new development is greated by "it'll never work".

Ok - so 550 pax as opposed to 450 - but with double decker gates, remember so there are MORE entry points to the aeroplane than at present.

Sure, there will be teething problems, that is to be expected. However, as experience builds and new ground handling SOPs are developed, I expect that we will see smooth turnarounds taking place.

[Algy]

Here's a picture of the kit. (http://shortlinks.co.uk/8s)