Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/20 of 19 December 2024 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 of the European Parliament and of the Council by laying down requirements for the safe provision of ground handling services and for organisations providing them

Article 1

Subject matter

This Regulation establishes common requirements for the provision of ground handling services and organisations providing them at aerodromes within the scope of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139.

Article 2

Scope

This Regulation shall apply to the following services provided to aeroplanes:

(a) passenger handling, including passengers with reduced mobility, including safety aspects of passenger and baggage acceptance at the aerodrome, safety of passengers during boarding and disembarkation using ground support equipment and during transit or transfer, and ground transportation of passengers between the aerodrome terminal and the aircraft;

(b) baggage handling, including baggage identification, sorting, building, transfer, arrival and reclaim;

(c) the following aircraft servicing activities: (i) operation of ground support equipment (GSE) used for ground handling services, including loading and unloading of catering, and the movement of those GSE on the apron and around the aircraft; (ii) aircraft refuelling and defuelling, namely into-plane fuelling services at the aerodrome; (iii) aircraft toilet servicing; (iv) potable water servicing; (v) aircraft exterior cleaning; (vi) aircraft de-icing and anti-icing;

(d) the following aircraft turnaround activities: (i) activities upon aircraft arrival, including aircraft securing on the ground; (ii) loading and unloading of baggage, cargo, mail, catering, and loading supervision; (iii) activities upon aircraft departure; (iv) aircraft towing and pushback;

(e) the following cargo and mail handling at an aerodrome: (i) cargo acceptance on behalf of the aircraft operator; (ii) final build-up and storage; (iii) final weighing and tagging of unit load devices; (iv) final checks before air transportation; (v) ground transportation of cargo and mail between the point of final checks and the aircraft.

This Regulation shall not apply to the following activities and organisations performing them:

(a) marshalling of aircraft;

(b) flight dispatch tasks performed by flight dispatchers as defined by Regulation (EU) No 965/2012;

(c) load control tasks related to load planning, mass and balance calculations, load control messages and communications, and issuance of load control documents;

(d) ground supervision;

(e) oil handling for the aircraft (including replenishment, servicing) performed by maintenance organisations approved under Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014, other organisations compliant with Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014, and other maintenance organisations holding an approval issued in compliance with ICAO Annex 8 Chapter 6;

(f) aircraft exterior cleaning when performed by maintenance organisations approved under Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014, other organisations compliant with Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014, and other maintenance organisations holding an approval issued in compliance with ICAO Annex 8 Chapter 6 and the activity is included in the organisation’s maintenance manual;

(g) any other ground handling activity when performed by a maintenance organisation approved under Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014, other organisations compliant with Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014, and other maintenance organisations holding an approval issued in compliance with ICAO Annex 8 Chapter 6 for the purpose of aircraft maintenance;

(h) ground transportation of passengers and crew members when this is the only service provided by an entity;

(i) self-handling, when performed by aircraft operators performing any of the following types of operations: (i) commercial air transport operations with other-than-complex motor-powered aircraft; (ii) any flight operations with complex or other-than-complex motor-powered aircraft that are not commercial air transport operations;

(j) handling of passengers with reduced mobility, or ground transportation of passengers and crew members, or both, when these are the only ground handling services provided by an aerodrome operator with its own personnel, not cumulated with other ground handling services provided by that aerodrome operator.

Article 3

Definitions

For the purpose of this Regulation, the following definitions apply:

(1) ‘ground handling organisation’ means one of the following: (a) a stand-alone ground handling organisation or a ground handling organisation that is part of a single ground handling organisation business grouping; (b) an aerodrome operator providing ground handling services; (c) an aircraft operator providing ground handling services to itself or within a single air carrier business grouping (self-handling);

(2) ‘single ground handling organisation business grouping’ means two or more ground handling organisations providing services in more than one Member State and are registered in territories to which the Treaties apply, which facilitate the harmonisation of their management systems and main organisation processes for the purpose of compliance with this Regulation, including applying the same policies, processes and procedures to the components of their management systems such as the safety management, documentation, compliance monitoring, management of changes, training of ground handling personnel, operational procedures, and maintenance programme for ground support equipment;

(3) ‘passenger handling’ means activities related to any kind of assistance to arriving, departing, transfer or transit passengers, including, where applicable, passenger and baggage acceptance, travel documents and flight tickets check, boarding pass issuance, gate activities, passenger boarding and disembarkation;

(4) ‘ground support equipment (GSE)’ means a motorised or non-motorised mobile vehicle, apparatus or piece of equipment that is designed, built and used for the provision of ground handling services on the movement area of an aerodrome;

(5) ‘baggage handling’ means a process consisting of several steps covering baggage sorting, baggage build, baggage transportation from the sorting area to the aircraft and vice versa, gate delivery baggage, baggage arrival, mishandled baggage, baggage reconciliation;

(6) ‘into-plane fuelling service’ means delivery of fuel to an aircraft;

(7) ‘aircraft de-icing’ means a ground procedure by which frost, ice, snow or slush is removed from an aircraft in order to provide uncontaminated surfaces. The process can combine de-icing and anti-icing performed in two steps;

(8) ‘aircraft anti-icing’, means a ground procedure that provides protection against the formation of frost or ice and accumulation of snow or slush on treated surfaces of the aircraft for a limited period of time (holdover time);

(9) ‘aircraft turnaround’ means a coordinated process of activities associated with the handling of an aircraft, its passengers, baggage, mail and cargo, occurring in a predetermined time interval between the aircraft arrival and its departure;

(10) ‘aircraft loading’ means stowing load or unit load devices (ULDs) on board the aircraft in accordance with the loading instructions;

(11) ‘baggage’ means the personal property or other articles of a passenger or crew member carried on a flight;

(12) ‘cargo’ or ‘freight’ means goods or property that are carried on an aircraft, other than baggage, mail, company material, company mail, and in-flight supplies, which are not consumed or used during flight;

(13) ‘mail’ means dispatches of correspondence and other items, other than the aircraft operator’s mail, tendered by and intended for delivery to postal services in accordance with the rules of the Universal Postal Union (UPU);

(14) ‘aircraft towing’ means the forward movement of an aircraft in service or out of service by using external power of ground support equipment that supports the aircraft’s nose landing gear or is attached to it;

(15) ‘aircraft pushback’ means the movement of an aircraft from a nose-in parking position by using external power of ground support equipment. The operation may involve a towbar;

(16) ‘unit load device (ULD)’ means a device for grouping and restraining cargo, mail and baggage for air transport that is either an aircraft container or a combination of an aircraft pallet and an aircraft pallet net, which is designed to be directly restrained by the aircraft cargo loading system (CLS);

(17) ‘load control’ means a process under the responsibility of the aircraft operator, to ensure that the aircraft is safely and efficiently loaded before each flight;

(18) ‘organisation providing ground handling services in more than one Member State’ means a ground handling organisation or a self-handling aircraft operator that provides services at aerodromes in more than one Member State and is overseen by more than one competent authority. It includes organisations that may or may not be part of a single ground handling organisation business grouping or of a single air carrier business grouping;

(19) ‘audit’ means a systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which requirements are complied with;

(20) ‘inspection’ means, in the context of compliance monitoring and oversight, an independent and documented conformity evaluation by observation and judgement accompanied, as appropriate, by measurements, testing or gauging, in order to verify compliance with applicable requirements; whereas an inspection may be part of an audit, but may also be conducted outside the normal audit plan, in particular, to verify the closure of a certain finding;

(21) ‘dangerous goods (DG)’ means articles or substances which are capable of posing a hazard to health, safety, property or the environment and which are shown in the list of dangerous goods in the Technical Instructions or which are classified according to those Instructions;

(22) ‘ICAO Technical Instructions’ means ICAO Doc 9284 ‘Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air’;

(23) ‘notification to captain (NOTOC)’ means accurate and legible written information provided to the commander or pilot-in-command concerning dangerous goods shipments or other special cargo that is to be carried on board the aircraft;

(24) ‘just culture’ means just culture as defined in Article 2, point 12, of Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council (¹);

(25) ‘aircraft handling’ means all the ground handling activities and communications occurring on the movement area, including aircraft refuelling and defuelling, aircraft de-icing and anti-icing, replenishing with potable water, toilet and wastewater services, catering handling, aircraft cleaning services, provision and operation of ground support equipment, aircraft access, securing of aircraft on the ground, aircraft loading and unloading, aircraft pushback or towing, equipment attachment and removal, operation of vehicles and equipment in the immediate vicinity of the aircraft;

(26) ‘passenger boarding bridge’ means a telescopic corridor that extends from an airport terminal to an aircraft for the passenger boarding and disembarkation;

(27) ‘turnaround coordination’ means a ground handling function with a safety role, which coordinates the ramp handling activities and ends with the release (dispatch) of a flight upon the completion of the ground handling services to the aircraft on the apron;

(28) ‘cargo compartment’ means the area of an aircraft that may be used for the transport of cargo, and/or baggage;

(29) ‘equipment restraint area (ERA)’ means a safety buffer area around the aircraft, which shall remain free from obstruction and foreign object debris before and after aircraft arrival and departure and during aircraft manoeuvring to and from the parking stand, except for the ground support equipment and personnel required for manoeuvring;

(30) ‘loading instructions’ means a set of instructions supporting the person supervising the aircraft loading in ensuring the correct and safe loading of the aircraft;

(31) ‘mass and balance documentation’ means documents containing data about the aircraft mass and balance, centre of gravity, aircraft load, notification to captain (NOTOC) for dangerous goods, loading instructions, load information.

Article 4

Conditions and procedures for organisations providing ground handling services

The conditions and procedures for organisations providing ground handling services to declare their capability and the availability to them of the means, to discharge the responsibilities for the safe provision of services as referred to in Article 37(2) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, shall be as set out in Annexes I and II to this Regulation.

Article 5

Transitional provisions

Organisations already providing ground handling services on 27 March 2025 shall submit a declaration in accordance with point ORGH.DEC.100 of Annex I to this Regulation from 27 March 2027, in accordance with a plan established and agreed with their competent authority as identified in point ORGH.GEN.105 of Annex I to this Regulation.

Article 6

Entry into force and application

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

ANNEX I

(PART-ORGH)

SUBPART GEN

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

This Annex establishes requirements on the following:

(a) responsibilities of the organisations listed in Article 3 definition (1) of this Regulation, which provide ground handling services at one or more aerodromes within the scope of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139;

(b) conditions and procedures for the declaration by those organisations.

(a) The competent authority responsible for receiving declarations from an organisation providing ground handling services at an aerodrome within the scope of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 shall be the authority designated by the Member State where the aerodrome is located.

(b) A single ground handling organisation business grouping or a self-handling aircraft operator that has its principal place of business in a Member State and provides ground handling services in more than one Member State shall submit a declaration to the competent authority designated by the Member State where the organisation’s principal place of business is located.

(c) The principal place of business of a single ground handling organisation business grouping referred to in point (b) shall be determined based on all of the following criteria: (1) it is the place where the corporate financial functions are exercised; these comprise all financial activities that are necessary to manage and maintain the organisation viable and financially fit; (2) it is the place where the accountable manager, who holds the ultimate accountability for safety within their organisation, exercises their role; (3) it is the effective and actual centre of control from where business development and continuity, strategy, and planning activities affecting the single ground handling organisation business grouping as a whole are managed on a regular basis.

(a) The ground handling organisation shall be responsible for the safe provision of services in accordance with all the following: (1) Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 and its delegated and implementing acts; (2) its declaration submitted pursuant to Article 37(2) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139; (3) the procedures for local operation contained in the aerodrome manual, as referred to in point 4.1(b) of Annex VII to Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, which are applicable to it as aerodrome user; (4) the operational procedures and instructions of the aircraft operator related to ground handling services, when provided or, when not provided, in accordance with the ground handling organisation’s operational procedures.

(b) The ground handling organisation shall establish a ground handling manual in accordance with point ORGH.DOC.110 and shall operate in accordance with it.

(c) The ground handling organisation shall establish standards and objectives for the safe performance of ground handling activities and develop operational procedures to achieve them. It shall also define the functions necessary to perform those activities, including the associated decision-making, authority, tasks and responsibilities of those functions.

(d) The ground handling organisation shall ensure that all personnel involved in ground handling activities: (1) are properly trained and have demonstrated their competence to perform the assigned tasks before being allowed to exercise their duties unsupervised, and that they maintain their competence; (2) are aware of their responsibilities and understand their role and how their duties are related to the safety of aerodrome and air transport operations.

(e) When using any ground support equipment (GSE) to perform ground handling activities, the ground handling organisation shall establish and implement a maintenance programme for its GSE.

A ground handling organisation may start operating at an aerodrome when it fulfils both the following conditions:

(a) formal arrangements with that aerodrome operator have been established;

(b) the ground handling organisation has declared its activity to the competent authority using the form set out in Appendix 1.

(a) The ground handling organisation may use alternative means of compliance (AltMoC) to the acceptable means of compliance (AMC) adopted by the Agency to demonstrate compliance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 and its delegated and implementing acts.

(b) If the ground handling organisation uses AltMoC, it shall provide the competent authority with the list of those AltMoC and shall make them available to the competent authority in due time for oversight purposes.

(c) If an organisation providing ground handling services in more than one Member State and having its principal place of business in a Member State applies an AltMoC only to aerodromes in one Member State, the organisation shall inform only the competent authority of that Member State. If such an organisation applies AltMoC to all its stations in the Member States, it shall inform the competent authority designated by the Member State where its principal place of business is located.

In order to discharge their responsibilities regarding the safe provision of ground handling services, the ground handling organisation may use its own operational procedures or industry standards or both.

(a) The ground handling organisation shall develop, implement and maintain a process as part of its management system to manage changes to its established processes, procedures and services. If the changes directly affect its capability to safely provide ground handling services, it shall ensure the following: (1) assess the safety risks of the expected changes, and implement mitigating measures to address those risks; (2) determine whether and how the changes affect its interfaces with other organisations and, if necessary, involve those organisations in the safety risk assessment and risk mitigation and align those mitigating measures to avoid contradictions or deterioration of safety; (3) communicate the changes and mitigating measures to the organisations affected by them; (4) document the process.