Being safe on the ramp can present frontline employees challenges that we may not routinely think about in a leadership role. Over time we meet and observe many members of the Ground Handling industry.  Most care deeply about their teams and customers.

They care so much that sometimes they put themselves, their equipment, their team-mates and the customer’s aircraft at risk because they do the WRONG things for the RIGHT reasons.  Here are a couple of those things that I’ve observed over time:

• In a rush to get the chocks on the plane, people have walked through the ingestion zones of running engines.  Today’s modern jet engines not only are efficient at pushing airliners forward at great rates of speed, they are also murderously efficient at doing great damage to the human body if you are unfortunate enough to get ingested.  The message to all, if engines are running, steer clear and you won’t get sucked in.
• In a rush to get the first bag off the plane and inside to customers, people have driven the belt loader directly to the aircraft door, without performing a brake check. This check ensures that there are no mechanical issues with the brakes so the belt loader can be safely stopped, at the aircraft.  It only takes a few seconds and customer’s will know that there is care not only for the bags, but for their own personal safety and the safety of their customer’s aircraft.

These are a just a couple of examples of doing the WRONG things, for the RIGHT reasons.