ASA World’s annual conference highlighted challenges and opportunities facing ground and cargo handling operators and the association’s journey to becoming more effective, credible and powerful. Will Waters reports from Copenhagen
ASA World members met at their annual conference in Copenhagen this October with the first results of the association’s evolution already in evidence.
Opening the conference, ASA World Chairman Hassan El Houry – also chair of airport services group Menzies Aviation – highlighted recent achievements and developments. These include the appointment of Director General Waleed Youssef, the introduction of a new policy handbook and the launch of a net zero roadmap for the association – which last year rebranded from the Aviation Services Association to ASA World to underline its transformed identity and approach.
El Houry said ASA World has focused on safety and regulatory harmonisation, introducing a new data governance policy, building a strong voice at ICAO and increasing its visibility through new digital campaigns and presence at major events.
With the post-pandemic rebound in air traffic, productivity has increased, but margins have reduced even further than their already thin pre-covid levels, with estimates showing a 3% annual decrease since the pandemic.
And the workforce remains below pre-pandemic levels, El Houry noted. Despite these challenges, the aviation services industry remains crucial, generating US$64 billion in global turnover and employing 1.1 million people directly.
El Houry identified three key challenges: recruiting and retaining talent; ensuring safety through consistent training and standards; and achieving global regulatory consistency.
He also emphasised the need for investment in modern equipment and greener technology to support the industry’s energy transition, while also highlighting the resilience demonstrated by the industry over the past few years, expressing hope for a new chapter of growth and innovation.
Training launch
One notable development this year is the launch of the ASA World Training Accreditation Programme (ATAP). This aims to ensure airport operational stability during transitions between ground handling organisations by validating individual training programmes against AHM 1110 standards – the Ground Operations Training Programme within the IATA Airport Handling Manual (AHM).
Youssef – who joined ASA as Director General in January following a distinguished career in airport management roles and partnerships – described the launch of ATAP as “a milestone” strategic programme for a sector characterised by high workforce mobility and attrition. “It plays a critical role in ensuring airport operational stability during transitions between ground handling organisations, which occurs in Europe every three to seven years with the change of licencing,” he said.
Once ASA auditors validate individual training programmes against the AHM 1110 standards, accredited organisations can then transfer staff to other accredited organisations with confidence in their training.
Youssef said ATAP “enables competency-based workforce mobility” among accredited ground handling organisations. “The genesis of this programme started a year or two ago, but I’m very glad that we were able to finalise it,” he said.
A second phase includes extending the ATAP certification to individual workers, offering certificates based on training completed at accredited GHAs. “This allows individual workers to have a genuine career pathway, and provides, for the first time, formal recognition of professional development and ground handling,” he noted.
ASA is also seeking credibility and reach for the programme via organisations like Airports Council International (ACI) and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), with mutual recognition from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) also anticipated once the airline body launches its own ‘Training Passport’ programme. Certificates were presented to Swissport and training provider Airport College for achieving the programme’s standards.
Strategic focus
In taking the helm of ASA, Youssef has been challenged with making the association more effective and with stronger impact to give it a more credible, powerful voice.
Youssef embarked on a restructuring plan based on four strategic pillars: thought leadership; effective advocacy; a lean and results-oriented Secretariat; and attracting new members.
Thought leadership is “first and foremost”, and means “to really identify the problems that we face as an industry, but also have innovative solutions,” he explained, adding that effective advocacy means understanding what regulators and member states are seeking from the industry.
“We need to explain our problems very clearly and succinctly to them, and communicate among ourselves as a sector. We need to communicate with airlines, with IATA; we need to communicate with the public as a whole, to explain the problems that we are facing,” he said.
The restructuring of the organisation was completed at the end of May and the last senior team member was hired in early September. Key achievements include publishing a policy handbook, developing a data governance policy, and submitting seven papers to the ICAO assembly. The ASA also signed an MOU with ICAO to collaborate on safety and training programmes.
“We had an amazingly strong presence at the ICAO assembly (in September),” noted Youssef. “One point that’s quite important is ICAO, for the first time in 81 years, is introducing amendments to the standards and recommended practices, the main source of national regulations on ground handling, and this will take place in the next three years.
“So, our presence is important – first to explain what our sector is, because we haven’t really been present at the ICAO level, and then to explain and share what our solutions are for our sector.”
Youssef also emphasised the importance of a ‘data backbone’ to evidence problems, calling on ASA members to respond to the association’s requests for data in order to provide empirical support for its arguments and messaging.
Other action points included asking members to share the ASA policy handbook, including with regulators, and promote the association’s mission.
State of the industry
McKinsey & Company Partner Daniel Riefer flagged some of the shifting dynamics of the industry post-pandemic. While total passenger air travel is back at pre-Covid levels, corporate travel remains below 2019 levels. Leisure and VFR travel though are significantly (+16%) above 2019 levels.
With low-cost carriers growing disproportionately, this has led to higher outsourcing and leaner operations. And in Europe, the seasonality has significantly increased – bringing more challenging staffing planning, the need for seasonal workers, as well as upskilling challenges to maintain productivity of employees. By contrast, in North America and Asia Pacific, seasonality levels have remained relatively stable, Riefer noted.
Examining profitability of the industry, analysis McKinsey does regularly with IATA indicates that return on invested capital over the cost of capital was broadly positive from 2012 to 2019, on average, for all aviation sub-sectors – except airlines, which collectively generated average annual losses of US$21 billion from 2012 to 2019. Ground services were profitable, at least in the pre-Covid years, with the relatively low-asset freight forwarding sector generating particularly healthy profits.
Examining how this has shifted, airlines’ performance was “significantly better” in 2024, although carriers were collectively still generating annual losses of around US$10 billion.
“We also see some shifts across the other sub-sectors,” noted Riefer, highlighting specific challenges for certain manufacturers – such as Boeing and Pratt & Whitney. And airports and ground services also struggled with profitability in 2024, with ground services providers collectively recording an economic loss of US$300 million dollars.
Future growth
According to McKinsey, future growth for aviation as a whole is expected at a CAGR of 4.5% from 2024 to 2027, with the largest growth in the Asia Pacific region. Ground handling is expected to grow at a slightly higher rate, by 5% annually. That is due to continued outsourcing and better management of seasonality by third-party handlers that is expected to raise outsourced functions above the current 45% level.
For air freight, compared with the “exceptional 11% growth year in 2024”, McKinsey expects average growth of 2-3% in 2025, while noting some major shifts in cargo flows. “For example, the number one laptop exporter to the US is now Vietnam”, Riefer noted, triggered by the recent tariff changes.
Key priorities for the industry include addressing labour challenges, improving operational resilience, focusing on sustainability, and exploring opportunities in geographic expansion, workforce management, operational excellence, and airport automation, noted Riefer.
“We had the pleasure to recently work with the German Airports Association, together with airports like Munich, Cologne, Berlin and Stuttgart, and explore the opportunities around airport automation, particularly autonomous driving on the apron, drones, robotics in baggage handling, as well as semi-autonomous jet bridges. We believe that particularly autonomous driving on the apron provides a significant opportunity, GSE electrification, and also air cargo as additional opportunities.”
Riefer highlighted several key elements that would help accelerate airport automation: professionalisation of business cases; encouraging more OEMs to get involved; flexible regulation; harmonisation of policies; persuading financial institutions to help fund the transitions; and learning from other industries – such as warehousing and ports.
“Airports remain a growth industry of more than 4.5%,” Riefer concluded. “There are positive outlooks for ground handlers, which are even higher due to continued outsourcing, and we believe there is significant opportunity for value creation around geographic expansion, workforce optimisation, asset automation, operational excellence, and GSE electrification.”
Turnaround Challenge
During a subsequent panel debate, executives from organisations including Havas, dnata, Swissport, AGI and IATA, noted how the significant increase in passenger volumes in the years ahead will necessitate innovative solutions to optimise gate and terminal usage.
The panellists highlighted standardisation efforts through IATA’s OPS Portal were aiming to reduce variations and improve safety. The conversation also touched on the potential of data sharing and the need for better collaboration with airports to manage infrastructure and equipment effectively.
Action points included the need for partnership between ASA and IATA to simplify the onboarding process for employees moving between ground handling companies; investigating opportunities for better data sharing between ground handlers, airlines, and airports to enable more efficient operations; collaboration with airports to explore equipment pooling and other ways to optimise the use of existing infrastructure; exploring ways to make the industry more attractive to the new generation of workers; and engagement with the IATA OPS Portal process to help identify and reduce variations in ground handling procedures across the industry.
Ground movements
During a session on the future of ground operations, leaders from Menzies, Swissport, dnata, Celebi and ASE Group highlighted the importance of safety, cybersecurity and the need for standardised regulations.
They debated the impact of airline demands on ground handling, the necessity of balanced partnerships, and the challenges of managing quicker turnarounds. The association’s role in advocating for fair terms and conditions in ground handling agreements was also discussed, stressing the need for collaboration with airports and unions to ensure operational resilience and safety.
Action points included agreements of the need to collect data and quantitative evidence to strengthen ASA’s arguments against unfair contract terms, like excessive payment delays and termination clauses; engage with airports to include provisions in their conditions of use that protect the financial viability of ground handlers; advocate for IATA to be more involved in the commercial aspects of the Standard Ground Handling Agreement, not just the operational standards; and organise a workshop on standards and regulations for ground handling with IATA and ACI.
Key challenges
Asked what keeps them up at night, the panellists mostly responded that it was safety issues – of aircraft and employees.
Mohamed Hanno, Executive Chairman of ASE Group, said it was also concerns about potential ‘black swan’ events.
Clive Sauve-Hopkins, CEO for airport operations at dnata, said cybersecurity issues such as ransomware attacks were a subject that “has come up a lot recently and a very serious one”, and an IT steering board recently decided to build a platform internally, to ensure its cybersecurity – rather than use a third-party solution.
Dave Dorner, Group CEO of Çelebi Aviation, agreed cybersecurity was “a critical issue”, adding: “And as we digitise, we’re becoming more and more integrated into airport systems, custom systems, airline systems, and therefore we have to take it increasingly seriously. You can control what you’re doing, but everybody in the system can be a weak link.”
He added: “In one of our national markets, Hungary, they’ve just designated us as a sort of critical infrastructure, and we’re going through a special IT audit because of that. I think that’s coming more and more: audits and tests against our cyber defences. But it’s an increasing risk, even though we take all these steps. We’re critical infrastructure.”
Youssef highlighted predictions about aviation traffic doubling in a short period of time, putting cost pressures on ground handlers to make the necessary investments to meet these needs. He asked: “Is there a better way for airports, airlines and ground handlers to work towards realising these investments? Or is the model that we have today, the only model; and will it allow us to meet the requirements?”
Dorner noted: “I’m not sure everything is doubling everywhere. But when I think about how you invest in growth, we’re not a particularly capital-intensive industry. We have a lot of people, and that’s a big investment. If you have a clear, predictable environment from a regulatory, legal, and expectations perspective, you can invest.”
For example, investing in electric GSE “is now an easy business case to make”, as long as airports maintain a stable and predictable cost of electricity, and provide the infrastructure for charging.
“If there are things beyond our control, like the infrastructure for charging, then we have to work with our partners to get there or find ways to supplement what’s available. But I think it’s within our capability to meet demand going forward if we have that clarity.”
Menzies’ El Houry said there are different models globally right now for ground handling and airports and airlines. “But I think the one common thread is in markets that are regulated, or airports that are regulated, there is a certain minimum standard, and everybody at that airport, including airlines and ground handlers and other stakeholders, are operating above that minimum standard; and the benefit accrues to the passenger, whereby they get a better service. The airline gets a better service, a safer service.
“So, I would advocate for minimum regulation in the industry to ensure that we have a safer industry for airlines, a better passenger experience. The ground handlers are able to invest. Our biggest asset is our people. We want to make sure that they are properly trained, have proper career paths, are well paid, and are provided with a dignified career trajectory.”
Sauve-Hopkins agreed but noted that this requires a partnership model. “Where you’ve got regulations and licences, you tend to get longer output. We all have the capability to invest, or want to invest. But the airlines and airports that need to commit to those partnerships.”
He highlighted an airport in North America that’s “about to issue its licence, and they’re considering a two-year licence. You just can’t invest in that,” he said.
“Another global airline is about to launch an RFP, putting all its contracts within the RFP – contracts we’d signed only a year ago. That’s not a partnership; that’s benchmarking, looking to save cost. How can you commit to innovation and investment if you’ve got supposed partners that aren’t contributing to that?”
Key role
Believing ASA can play a key role in this, and conscious of “preaching to the converted”, he asked: “What are we as an industry going to do to help change that environment? Because at the moment, whilst it’s not commoditized, it’s not a true partnership model that it can be. I think we have the opportunity to try and shape it up.”
Hanno said that during ASA’s meetings in Montreal during the ICAO 42nd Assembly in September, ASA made “very good progress” with ACI, IATA and ICAO on the need for “good standards with a little regulation”. He said “ACI, IATA, and ASA are the three legs of ICAO. So, all of us we have to be together.”
Youssef expressed pride that ASA had submitted a paper with ACI to the ICAO assembly, “calling on governments to help us increase accessibility to renewable energy at airports and to create the infrastructure, but also to finance that infrastructure”.
Hanno praised Youssef for also proposing, during ASA’s meetings in ICAO, a workshop for standards regulations, which up to now has been lacking – leaving the current patchwork of different standards.
Youssef said: “My ideal situation is we take the IATA standards and those become harmonised standards. We’ve all contributed to these; we’re all working to these; but we have to elevate that from an industry standard to transnational regulation.”
