Ground handling is a set of services that are provided at airports to assist passengers or carriers and it encompasses a whole range of activities and processes that are provided at the aircraft itself to both passengers and their luggage as well as to aircraft and freight.
Because space at the airport is limited, in Spanish Royal Decree 1161/1999, on regulating airport ground handling services, a distinction is made between services governed by free access that are not subject to an agent selection process and services with restricted access, known as ramp handling services, which are subject to an agent selection process by the manager. In both cases, a contract must be signed with Aena to define the terms and conditions governing use of the airport domain, measures to guarantee the continuity of handling services and the rules governing conduct for proper airport management.
The regulations provide for a total of 11 different service categories:
- Deregulated services or non-ramp services:
- Category 1: administrative assistance on the ground and supervision.
- Category 2: passenger assistance.
- Category 4NR: freight and mail assistance (except for transportation between the airport terminal and the aircraft and transportation between different points of the airport).
- Category 6: aircraft cleaning and servicing assistance.
- Category 8: online maintenance assistance.
- Category 9: flight operations and crew administration assistance.
- Category 10: ground transport assistance
- Category 11: catering assistance.
- Ramp services:
- Category 3: baggage assistance.
- Category 4R: Freight and mail assistance (physical handling between the airport terminal and the aircraft).
- Category 4NR: freight and mail assistance (except for transportation between the airport terminal and the aircraft and transportation between different points of the airport).
- Category 5: runway operations assistance.
- Category 7: fuel and lubricant assistance.
(Details of the services included in each category can be found in Annex I of the above-mentioned Spanish Royal Decree.)
In terms of ramp ground handling services, the process for selecting authorised handling agents for provision of this service to third parties takes place according to Article 14 of Spanish Royal Decree 1161/99 and is launched with an initial external consultation stage with the Users Committees of the various airports, to which a draft is submitted with details on the terms and conditions to be governed by the associated tender procedure, as well as details of the actions and obligations that will apply to the selected agents. Once Aena approves the final tender specifications, the corresponding tender is published. After operations begin, the term of such licences is seven years.
The number of licences for each airport is established according to the thresholds defined in Spanish Royal Decree 1161/1999. Specifically, we have:
- Airports with three ramp licences: A.S. Madrid – Barajas, J.T. Barcelona – El Prat, Palma de Mallorca, Alicante – Elche and Malaga – Costa del Sol. In these cases, the number of agents was increased to three by order of the Spanish Ministry of Public Works.
- Airports with two ramp licences: Airports where annual traffic is greater than one million passengers or 25,000 tonnes of freight carried per aircraft.
- Airports with one ramp licence:Airports where annual traffic is less than that stated above will have a single agent providing the ramp handling services to third parties.
If you would like more information on the handling agents authorised by Aena, please contact us by writing to: handling@aena.es
