Connected assets: the key to airside efficiency

No matter where in the world an aircraft lands or departs, a frenetic ballet is invariably unfolding just beyond its passenger windows.

Tractors and tugs, baggage and cargo dollies, container and belt loaders, refueling vehicles, ground power units, and many other forms of ground support equipment (GSE) operate in carefully choreographed sequence toward a common objective: turning an aircraft around as quickly and efficiently as possible while maintaining the highest standards of safety.

Coordinating GSE across an airport apron – the designated area where aircraft park, unload/load passengers or cargo, refuel, and undergo maintenance – is not only operationally complex; its efficiency has a direct bearing on flight delays and schedules, airport and crew overtime, in-flight fuel burn, and overall airport throughput. As airports contend with rising passenger demand, escalating operating costs, and, in many cases, aging infrastructure, ground handling has become an increasingly important focus for operational improvement – and for the gains that digitalization can deliver to an environment still largely coordinated through radio communications, paper documentation, and airside supervision.

Urgency for a digital transformation

Pressure to improve ground handling productivity is mounting on multiple fronts. First, the activity airside is becoming progressively busier. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), aircraft departures are expected to reach 40.3 million in 2026 – a 7.5% increase over pre-pandemic levels.¹ 

The long-term outlook remains equally robust. The Airports Council International (ACI) projects that global passenger traffic will rise from 10.2 billion in 2026 to 18.8 billion by 2045. That’s equivalent to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4%, causing ACI to caution that such “growth is increasingly accompanied by capacity constraints, such as airport infrastructure limitations.”²

Against this backdrop, airline operating efficiency is already at historic highs, with fleets achieving record levels of utilization. Passenger load factors are currently running at 83.8%, even as airline profitability per passenger has come under pressure from higher fuel costs and flat passenger yields.³

With only limited scope for further optimization in these and other operational areas, airlines have increasingly turned their attention to new sources of efficiency, placing ground handling and the seamless aircraft turnaround processes firmly in the spotlight.
 

As Monika Mejstrikova, IATA’s Director of Ground Operations, told the association’s annual Ground Handling Conference in May 2026: “Ground handling has always been complex. But today, that complexity is growing and the margin for error is shrinking. Too many ground handling processes still rely on disconnected systems, manual inputs, and delayed information. And when visibility is poor, mistakes happen.”

She points to the way forward: “Digitalization changes that by giving operators better visibility and enabling faster, better decisions.”⁴

Journey to new sources of efficiency

It is a call to action that SecurityTech companies such as G+D are answering with innovative end-to-end tracking solutions. “Airports are being asked to improve performance, resilience, and sustainability – all at the same time,” says David Weinberg, Head of Portfolio Management at G+D IoT Solutions. “Better visibility into ground fleets can help organizations use assets more efficiently, reduce waste, and make more informed operational decisions without necessarily increasing asset volumes.”

Taken together, these trends put aircraft turnaround delays – and their associated costs – under increasing scrutiny. In the United States alone, the total annual cost of flight delays, regardless of cause, is estimated at $33 billion. And for airlines, every additional minute an aircraft is delayed at the stand costs around $100.⁵

The ground support challenge

The reality is that – despite public perception – many disruptions, delays, and operational inefficiencies do not begin with high-profile systems failures, severe weather, or industrial action. More often, they originate on the apron itself, where the management of ground support equipment can have an outsized impact on performance.

In many cases, the root cause is straightforward: the limited visibility into the location and status of ground support units. Assets may be parked in remote areas unknown to coordinators, taken out of service for maintenance or repair, or – particularly as airports electrify their ground fleets to reduce carbon emissions – left idle at charging stations.

Compared with modern aircraft or advanced air traffic management systems, ground support equipment is relatively simple and low-tech. Yet when the location, utilization, and condition of these assets remain largely invisible, they can become a significant source of avoidable delays, unnecessary costs, and poor asset utilization.

And airlines know this. Having exhausted many of the more obvious opportunities for resource optimization elsewhere, airlines are looking to airport operators to improve performance across airside environments. For operators, the priorities are abundantly clear: maximize resource utilization, reduce delays, and avoid unnecessary capital expenditure on additional assets. With inefficiencies in GSE utilization adding approximately 16% to the direct costs of ground handling,⁶ this represents a substantial opportunity to improve operational and financial performance for both airlines and airport operators.

The scale of the day-to-day operational challenge is certainly impressive: 

• Swissport – the world’s largest ground handling company – operates a fleet of approximately 14,300 motorized GSE units across more than 300 airports worldwide, excluding an even larger inventory of non-motorized assets such as baggage dollies and cargo pallet movers.⁷
• South Europe Ground Services, Spain’s leading ground handling provider, manages more than 8,000 units of GSE across 38 Spanish airports.⁸
• At London Heathrow – Europe’s busiest airport – around 7,500 vehicles operate airside.⁹

Underutilized, invisible assets

One of the principal contributors to GSE costs is persistently low asset utilization. In many cases, equipment is inadequately tracked, frequently misplaced, or at times even presumed stolen, resulting in large numbers of idle assets.

A study of ground support services conducted by PA Consulting for the UK’s Department for Transport identified low utilization as one of the main barriers to the effective provision and efficient operation of GSE. The report attributes poor utilization to a combination of factors, including highly concentrated peaks of activity, frequent ramp congestion, duplication of equipment, insufficient parking areas for units close to aircraft stands, and inadequate equipment maintenance and serviceability.

The PA consultants are clear in their conclusion: “Low GSE utilization is a key challenge facing the sector as [the industry] seeks to operate more effectively and at lower cost.”¹⁰ A further challenge is the lack of real-time visibility into the operational condition of individual GSE assets. Equipment failures – and, just as importantly, the absence of timely information about those failures – can trigger delays that ripple throughout an airline’s network, resulting in financial penalties, reputational damage, missed slots and passenger connections, and crew duty-time violations.

Taxiing toward the intelligent airport apron

Modernizing GSE with digital capabilities – including real-time tracking and local data collection – is increasingly becoming an operational imperative, according to aviation industry consultants and analysts. To address the growing range of operational challenges, airports and fleet operators must create a more intelligent, connected ecosystem in which the assets required to service aircraft and passengers are continuously visible, data-driven, and easier to manage.

With airports coming under mounting pressure to improve utilization across every aspect of their operations, the airside apron is emerging as a strategic environment – one at the center of digital transformation and the next generation of smart airport initiatives.

“It may seem surprising that simple assets like dollies and passenger stairs can unlock significant operational insights,” says G+D’s Weinberg. “Yet through real-time tracking, their movement data can reveal airside bottlenecks; their idle-time analysis highlights inefficiencies; and their usage patterns can inform optimal route planning and better asset allocation across terminals.”

He adds, “By adding intelligence to the asset itself, its behavior can reveal important information about coordination, congestion, and resource location and allocation. And for airline operators that can mean reduced delays, improved service reliability, and optimized processes on the airport’s apron.” 

End-to-end smart asset management

At the core of G+D’s asset connectivity, tracking, and management portfolio is IoTgo^® Track-Suite, a scalable telematics platform that centralizes the management of connected devices and related operational data, enabling rapid performance analysis and supporting informed, real-time operational decision-making.

The platform is complemented by a broad portfolio of devices, ranging from ultra-compact item trackers to solar-powered telematics gateways. These fall within the IoTgo^® Track-Solar product family, which consists of maintenance-free tracking devices that provide real-time location and condition monitoring for logistics assets without an onboard power supply. Self-sufficient, rugged, and reliable, they deliver frequent location updates and movement tracking across diverse fleets.

Designed specifically for airports and other large outdoor operational environments, IoTgo^® Track-Solar Advanced E extends the product family’s capabilities with intelligent, maintenance-free tracking for unpowered assets. Its integrated solar panel and robust IP69K-rated enclosure ensure dependable performance even in demanding operating conditions. Track-Solar Advanced E is specifically designed to be lean. Its compact size is highly relevant to airport use cases where the tracked equipment includes smaller assets such dollies and carts. As such, the device provides instant asset visibility and enables more effective resource allocation across an airport’s complex environment.

“In a busy airport environment, no one has time to manage device batteries across hundreds of assets. Solar charging removes that operational overhead entirely,” says Patrick Heber, Team Lead IoT Devices at G+D IoT Solutions. “The device is installed once and runs, which is exactly what ground handling operations need.”

Those are just the kinds of devices that will help to empower the airside ecosystem with the intelligence needed to meet the demands of the future.

As ground operations grow more complex and traffic volumes continue to rise, the transformation of ground support equipment into connected, trackable assets is becoming less a question of technological adoption than of strategic necessity. For airports seeking to choreograph more responsive, resilient, and cost-effective aircraft turnarounds, the move represents both a route to competitive advantage and a milestone in the sector’s digital evolution.