Welcome to the Summer 2022 issue of Airside International, in which the first of the features relate to the perennial challenge of preventing aircraft damage. Megan Ramsay looks at how technology, training and agreed standards of operations might help to mitigate the danger.
This issue’s other two features concern the little-discussed business of airside drainage and water recycling, and the continuing trend amongst ground service providers for electric ground power units (GPUs).
We get the latest news from two of the bigger GSE lessors – Mercury GSE and HiSERV – and catch up with GSE manufacturers based in Turkey (DENGE Airport Equipment) and Thailand (Bliss-Fox Panus GSE). We meet with ADB SAFEGATE Airport Systems’ global sales director digital solutions, Ilya Burkin, who explains how the company is helping airports to digitalise in order to improve both safety and efficiency in many areas of their operations, and also speak with ground service providers Havas and GAT Airline Ground Support to get the views of changing times from the industry’s handlers.
Going green is an ongoing theme of these pages, no more so than when the UK’s Birmingham Airport and Farnborough Airport both detail to Airside their impressive sustainability strategies. And Edmonton International Airport in Canada is also doing its bit, looking to convert airside vehicles to run on combined hydrogen and diesel fuel. These are all parts of the wider efforts being made by the aviation industry to minimise harmful carbon emissions and contribute to a more sustainable future.
In the ever-changing field of technology, we chat with Lana Jansen of WePlan, which offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that enables airlines to optimise their crew manpower deployment on a continual basis, and take a look at Schiphol’s decision to acquire two innovative TaxiBot semi-robotic pushbacks.
Finally, we look forward to late summer and the launch of a new European exhibition dedicated to GSE – GSE Expo Europe – to be held in Paris this September.
