Aircraft ground damage, particularly in view of the airline industry'e(tm)s thin profit margins, is a significant financial, operational and safety issue. The Flight Safety Foundation several years ago estimated that 'eoeramp accidents cost major airlines worldwide at least $10 billion a year. These accidents affect airport operations, result in personnel injuries and damage aircraft, facilities and ground-support equipment.'e The Foundation also estimated that 27,000 ramp accidents and incidents - one per 1,000 departures - occur worldwide annually. Ground damage is associated with safety risks that cannot be underestimated. About 243,000 people are injured each year in ground-occurrence accidents and incidents; the injury rate is 9 per 1,000 departures. This book addresses the issue of ground-damage reduction at the level of a single service provider. Several industry bodies have tried to address the problem by launching a number of programs and promoting a number of initiatives.

However, the industry has lacked what this book now offers: guidance on how to manage airline ground operations more efficiently from an aviation management perspective. It deals with many of the causes of ground damage not contemplated by the existing programs, such as the low sophistication of an average ground-handling company'e(tm)s management system, the infrastructural constraints at airports, the airline enforced policy of fast turnarounds, the insufficient training of personnel, the lack of human factors awareness, the high turnover rate of personnel and thus their low motivation in the performance of duties. Reducing Aircraft Ground Damage sets out to fill the void in the literature, targeting those causes of ground damage under the reasonable control of an organization'e(tm)s management which the existing ground-damage reduction initiatives fail to address. The readership will include ground-handling managers at an executive level, ground safety managers and station managers. The book could also complement the ISAGO auditor training program and an undergraduate airline operations course.