A Study of Aircraft Damage Accidents and Safety Culture in the Ground Services in an Airlines Company

Abstract

The performance of the airline industry is highly affected by ground services operations. For instance, a failure in one ground operation activity could result in the poor on-time performance of the airline's companies. The objective of the current study is to analyze the causes of ground operations accidents that resulted in aircraft damages in an airlines company in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the safety culture of the ground operators was assessed. The number of accidents during the period 2016-2019 was found high. The main causes were unsafe operator act and unsafe supervision. Also, the safety culture questionnaire revealed that other causes had a role in developing unsafe acts, such as organizational aspects. The study recommends improving many organizational aspects such as properly designed procedures, roles and responsibilities, training, communication and reporting system, equipment maintenance schedule, field inspections, strict and supportive supervision, as well as fair workload and compensation. Improving these aspects should reflect on the safety culture and behaviour of operators and immediate supervisors. The result is reduced aircraft damage accidents and on-time performance improvement.