Airside operators at airports, from turnaround to maintenance, catering to cleaning, are playing a growing role in aviation’s decarbonisation efforts. With many of the emissions reductions in this part of the industry ripe for early success — and therefore compounding benefits over the years to aviation’s 2050 net zero goals — we sat down with Mabel Kwan, managing director at Alton Aviation Consultancy, which recently produced a white paper on sustainable ground operations, to learn about some quick wins ground handling agents, or GHAs, are already achieving.
“Under the backdrop of comprehensive climate action plans such as the European Green Deal, the responsibility to reduce CO2 emissions is being taken seriously across the aviation value chain, and that includes ground operations,” Kwan tells us. “While the brunt of the effort focuses on airlines, airports and GHAs are not exempt from scrutiny when it comes to decarbonisation, and GHAs are likely to see increased pressure from their partners to align with climate goals going forward. Ground services equipment contributes a significant component of the emissions directly attributable to ground operations. Hence, many GHAs have focused their attention on this area.”
“Many ground handling agents have signalled their commitment to the cause and established concrete targets to reduce waste and emissions,” she notes. “To create internal alignment, some GHAs have also set up sustainability units within their organization focused on this agenda and implementing organization-wide initiatives.”
Spanish ground handler Worldwide Flight Services, for instance, is working to its 2022 commitment, Our Sustainable Flight Path, and has already swapped nearly 90 percent of its cargo-related ground support equipment from fossil fuel to electric power. This conversion from petrol and diesel engines to lower carbon power is an important part of the puzzle for ground handlers.
Estimates, including from Europe’s Destination 2050 agenda, suggest that reducing emissions from ground movements and auxiliary power units, primarily via the use of electric tugs and ground power, can cut emissions by up to three percent per flight, depending on the nature of the aircraft and sectors concerned.
In some ways, this is relatively low-hanging fruit, with innovations like electric and automated taxi equipment — including TaxiBot tugs — now rolling out.
“Technology advancements engineered to drive efficiency and streamline ground handlers’ operations instinctively support sustainability initiatives and will be a key differentiator to achieving long-term environmental goals. One example is ground handling digital optimisation,” Kwan notes. “There has been technological progress in monitoring aircraft turnaround activities and utilising data to understand the root causes behind delays and operational issues. However, there is an opportunity to harness advanced technology, such as artificial intelligence, to implement further improvements.”
Coordinated, shared and real-time planning of airline flight operations is critical. If ground handlers know more about where and when aircraft will require servicing, and what kind of servicing, on-airport journeys — and therefore both emissions and the carbon impact of large ground handling fleets — can be reduced.
Sometimes, Kwan says, substantial emissions reductions can be achieved through relatively simple behavioural changes. “GHAs have also stepped-up efforts to reduce waste and carbon footprint on current operations through efficiency improvements. For example, at the Baltic Ground Services Group, they have provided eco-driving training to their ground handling companies that provide logistics services. Through this training, they have reduced fuel consumption by approximately 5 percent in daily driving by optimising transportation routes and avoiding unnecessary kilometres.”
Ambitious and successful plans require buy-in from partners and an ecosystem approach
“Initiatives have been announced by major players such as Swissport, dnata, and SATS to introduce or expand the share of green vehicles in their fleets,” Kwan outlines. “For example, Swissport aims to transition 50 percent of its ground service equipment to electric or hybrid by 2025. Ground handlers can significantly minimise their carbon waste by reducing the use of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles in favour of more efficient and environmentally friendly equipment, such as electronic cargo lifters.”
As the supply chain and infrastructure base for aviation hydrogen begins to roll out, options for fuelling airside vehicles via the same hydrogen supply will also open up. Indeed, familiarising airport staff and the public to the presence of hydrogen vehicles is part of the safety proving and familiarisation plan for this power source of the future.
Ground handlers, however, cannot do this alone: governments, fuel suppliers, power suppliers and airports must do their part in investing in the infrastructure required. Electricity grid infrastructure may need to be redesigned, while at the same time airports have the opportunity to add substantial green power via the use of solar farms and solar roofs across their large estates in particular.
“Architects and planners need to incorporate eco-measures in the airport plans and in designing the physical infrastructure,” Kwan emphasises. “Looking forward, the European Union has developed the concept of the Ultra-Green airport 2050+ project on the basis that aircraft in 2050 and beyond will be optimised in terms of fuel efficiency. One of the initiatives of the plan is to enable airport operations to be self-sufficient in its energy needs. Innovative systems could generate energy at the airport to move it towards self-sufficiency. This could be done by, for example, arrestor cables that decelerate landing aircraft and convert kinetic energy into electrical energy for ground vehicles’ usage.”
Within the catering part of the ground handling world, too, work is apace, Kwan says, “including efforts to minimize food waste and plastic use within their onboard catering services. IATA indicates that a typical passenger generates 1.43 kilos of cabin waste, of which 23 percent is untouched food and drink, and a further 17 percent comprises recyclable materials. Changes made by GHAs could be as simple as replacing plastic inflight meal containers with paper or biodegradable alternatives or considering the use of lower-carbon alternative meats, something SATS has been testing. However, inflight catering comes under stringent hygiene and safety protocols, which can make the implementation of sustainable waste management through the reuse and recycling of materials challenging.”
A key driver here is coming from airlines, which are setting robust sustainability requirements for suppliers and expecting them to be met — and, critically, to be reported in order for airlines to meet their Scope 3 supply chain requirements. This closer working is absolutely fundamental to decarbonise aviation.
“Efforts to drive sustainability will have to be coordinated within the ecosystem,” Kwan concludes. “Only progress in a multi-stakeholder, multi-pronged approach can pave a path toward net zero.”
Author: John Walton
Published 9th March 2023
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