The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has proposed ground handling regulations for all European Union airports to increase the safety, cybersecurity and consistency of all actions on the ground before and after flight. Ground handling has been largely self-regulated in EU airports.
The proposal will affect approximately 300,000 workers in the ground handling sector. The regulation will also ensure that ground handling is covered by the EU Regulation 2022/1645 on cybersecurity.
"This entirely new proposal fills an important gap in the overall regulation of aviation operations in the European Union, which means that we will now have an end-to-end approach to ensuring aviation safety and cybersecurity," said EASA acting executive director Luc Tytgat. He added: "this will provide increased certainty that ground handling operations are being carried out safely and consistently".
Tytgat said the proposal will reduce costs and allow for resources to be focused on more critical operations. He concluded: "in future, air operators will be able to rely on the results of oversight performed only once by the competent authority and reduce their own audits only to the necessary additional aspects."