BAKGRUNN (fra kommisjonsforordning)

(1) Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 establishes the essential requirements for the safe provision of ground handling services and organisations providing them at the Union aerodromes within the scope of that Regulation. Article 37(2) requires providers of ground handling services to make a declaration regarding their capability to discharge their responsibilities associated with the safe provision of ground handling services. 

(2) To ensure a total-system approach and guarantee a baseline for safety in all aviationrelated activities, and in line with the principle of subsidiarity, detailed rules for the provision of ground handling services and the privileges and responsibilities of organisations providing them should be laid down. 

(3) Pursuant to Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, those rules are to reflect the state of the art and best practices in the field of ground handling; take into account the applicable International Civil Aviation Organization (‘ICAO’) Standards and Recommended Practices (‘SARPs’) and worldwide ground handling operation experience, as well as scientific and technical progress in the ground handling domain; be proportionate to the size and complexity of the ground handling activities; and provide for the necessary flexibility for customised compliance. 

(4) The Regulation should ensure a level playing field for the provision of ground handling services for all organisations providing those services, including selfhandling by aircraft operators, at aerodromes within the scope of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139.

(5) For aircraft operators performing self-handling or aerodrome operators providing ground handling services, which already have management system structures required under other Union regulations in the aviation sector, the ground handling requirements should be easy to integrate so as to create minimum disruptions to the established system of organisations and national competent authorities. Therefore, this Regulation should be aligned as much as possible particularly with Regulations (EU) No 965/2012 and (EU) No 139/2014, as the ground handling domain is an interface between air operations and aerodrome operations, and therefore the management systems as regulated by these acts should be aligned and the necessary crossreferences established. 

(6) This Regulation does not cover those ground handling activities that are already regulated by other acts, such as flight dispatch, load control, and ground supervision, which are covered by Commission Regulation (EU) No 965/2012, marshalling of aircraft, which is covered by Regulation (EU) No 139/2014, or oil handling, which is covered by Commission Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014. 

(7) In line with the proportionality principle, with regard to self-handling by aircraft operators, this Regulation should only apply to self-handling activities by aircraft operators performing commercial air transport operations with complex motorpowered aircraft. It is considered that Commission Regulation (EU) No 965/2012 sufficiently addresses the safety risks of self-handling activities performed by operators conducting any operations that are not commercial air transport operations, either with complex or with other-than-complex motor-powered aircraft. 

(8) The measures provided for in this Regulation should improve and promote the safety of ground handling services and a safety culture within the organisations providing such services. Therefore, the requirements laid down in this Regulation should provide the necessary tools and a description of the process for organisations to implement a safety reporting system, to help them collect and analyse the safety data obtained from those reports, and to establish and foster a safety culture with each individual employed in their organisation. 

(9) With this Regulation, ground handling organisations are to assume full responsibility for the safe provision of services, their operations, and control the operational risks of their activities, while aircraft operators continue to remain responsible for the safety of the aircraft and for the flight, while aerodrome operators continue to remain responsible for the safe operation of aerodromes. Therefore, ground handling organisations should develop and implement a management system with effective safety management processes capable of identifying and managing the safety risks, including those arising from interfaces with the aircraft operators and the aerodrome operators, through the application of adequate and proportionate mitigation measures.

(10) The management system developed and implemented by ground handling organisations should be proportionate, scalable to the size and complexity of their organisation and activities, and should cover the management of safety, management of changes, safety reporting, training of personnel, records and documentation, maintenance of ground support equipment used, identification of safety-related interfaces with other stakeholders involved in ground handling activities, operational procedures, and compliance monitoring. Ground handling organisations should strive to develop and foster an organisational safety culture, in which employees understand their individual importance in the aviation safety chain and contribute actively to maintaining and improving the level of safety in their daily operational tasks. This Regulation contains provisions to support organisations to develop and cultivate a healthy reporting culture. 

(11) To ensure a common approach in addressing the safety risks arising from the interfaces between ground handling, aircraft and aerodrome operations, and to promote a common understanding of hazards and risks, ground handling organisations, aircraft operators and aerodrome operators should have the same safety information and safety data when these are relevant for them and when these information and data may affect the safety performance of either organisation. To achieve this, such organisations should be able to share among themselves relevant safety information, as well as information resulting from occurrence reports or oversight inspections and audits. 

(12) Ground handling services, provided to an aircraft at an aerodrome, are an interface in themselves between aircraft and aerodrome operations. The safety risks arising from this situation should be properly acknowledged through a regulatory framework for the interaction between organisations, so as to enable them to identify those operational interfaces having an effect on safety and apply proper mitigation measures to minimise the risks in operation. At the same time, ground handling organisations should be able to discuss safety on an equal ground with the other stakeholders involved in those operational interfaces and provide them with the possibility to apply their own operational procedures if they are based on their safety risk management processes and if this is agreed with the aircraft operator to which they provide services. 

(13) To ensure a smooth transition from the existing national regulations of the Member States to this Regulation, it is necessary to provide ground handling organisations that are already operating at the time when this Regulation becomes applicable with sufficient time and minimum conditions to shift from the existing national regulations of the Member States to this Regulation. 

(14) Training of ground handling operational personnel is one of the most important measures for mitigating the safety risks in ground handling activities Ground handling organisations should ensure that all operational personnel involved in ground handling activities are competent to provide those services. The competence of the operational personnel should always be maintained. Therefore, this Regulation establishes minimum requirements regarding the training and assessment programme for the safety-relevant personnel to ensure that they develop and maintain the competencies necessary to perform their tasks safely and effectively. 

(15) To support the mobility of personnel across ground handling organisations and to reduce the training costs upon re-training of a new employee that already has already achieved the required qualifications at the previous employment, ground handling personnel should be able to easily provide proof of training already completed. The ground handling organisation should therefore provide to the employee a copy of respective training records, upon request, which should enable the easy assessment and mutual recognition of training across organisations subject to this Regulation. 

(16) Flight safety and safe provision of ground handling services depend heavily on the use of functional, properly maintained ground support equipment. The functionality of the equipment used for the provision of ground handling services should be ensured by the application of a maintenance programme, including preventive maintenance, developed and applied in accordance with instructions and manuals of the equipment manufacturer. The rules should also be technology-neutral, to allow innovations and a smooth adoption of new technologies at a fast pace, while keeping an environmentally friendly approach towards the choice of ground support equipment. At the same time, the rules should provide the possibility for organisations to adopt and implement practices and business models that minimise aerodrome congestion and make aerodrome operations safer and more efficient, such as equipment pooling or a safety stack model, where the aerodrome specificity allows for the implementation of such business models. 

(17) This Regulation should ensure a pragmatic and balanced approach between prescriptive and performance-based rules. Flexibility in the approach towards requirements on operational procedures for ground handling services is a key to achieving the safety objectives. Therefore, it is essential that the requirements covering the operational procedures remain performance-based and rely on the voluntary application of industry standards and good practices, as well as operational procedures well established by aircraft operators and ground handling organisations. 

(18) The essential requirements in Annex VII, point 4.1(c) to Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 mandate that organisations provide ground handling services in accordance with the operational instructions and procedures of the aircraft operators. The operational procedures for the same ground handling service and to the same type of aircraft may differ significantly between aircraft operators, and this increases the risk of human error as it could lead to aircraft damage and endanger flight safety. The essential requirements in Annex VII point 4.2.3 to Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 require that ground handling organisations develop their own operational procedures for the provision of ground handling services. This Regulation enables ground handling organisations to apply their own operational procedures if this is agreed by the aircraft operator. Furthermore, this Regulation makes ground handling organisations formally accountable and responsible for the safety of their own services by the application of an effective safety management system. This should also support ground handling organisations in developing, assessing, discussing and agreeing with the aircraft operators on common operational procedures that are safe for both parties. All these elements, placed in several requirements, should improve the existing level of trust between the aircraft operator and its provider of ground handling services, and lead towards a harmonisation of the operational procedures. 

(19) This Regulation should further ensure that it provides solid elements for organisations to improve their analysis of causes of events identified through their own compliance monitoring processes or through the national competent authority oversight, and also to improve their safety reporting culture. At the same time, the Regulation should also provide a framework for the provision by the national competent authorities of direct and consistent feedback on reported ground handling events directly to the ground handling organisations.

(20) It is necessary to provide sufficient time for the ground handling industry and national competent authorities to implement the new regulatory framework after the entry into force of this Regulation, therefore a transition period of 3 years should be provided for its deferred applicability and a transition period of 6 years should be provided for the deferred applicability of the requirements covering the information security management. 

(21) The requirements laid down in this Regulation are based on Opinion No 01/2024 issued by the Agency in accordance with Article 75(2), points (b) and (c), and Article 76(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139. 

(22) In accordance with Article 128(4) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, the Commission consulted experts designated by each Member State in accordance with the principles laid down in the Inter-institutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better LawMaking,