Every aircraft that pulls onto a remote stand is surrounded by a small fleet of vehicles working against the clock: stairs, ambulifts, belt loaders, cargo loaders. Most turnarounds go smoothly.
But some do not.
And when it goes wrong and there are damages to aircrafts, it’s costly.
According to IATA, four categories of GSE, belt loaders, cargo loaders, passenger stairs, and boarding bridges, are responsible for up to 40 percent of all aircraft ground damage incidents worldwide. IATA recorded more than 29,000 ground damage incidents globally in 2025 alone, and separately projects the annual cost could climb to nearly $10 billion by 2035 if the industry doesn’t change course.
Add up the disruption behind a single incident and the cost climbs quickly: repairs, inspection time, a replacement aircraft, lost passenger revenue, and knock-on delays across a carrier’s network. With more than 29,000 incidents recorded in a single year, that adds up fast across an industry already facing a multi-billion dollar bill.
In June 2026, a Southwest Airlines 737 was struck by a ground service vehicle during boarding at Memphis International Airport. The aircraft was pulled from service for inspection, a replacement aircraft had to be found, and the resulting delays rippled through the carrier’s schedule on connecting routes. The disruption was a reminder that a single vehicle-to-aircraft contact event can take a plane out of the sky for days.
Widebody aircraft are disproportionately exposed. IATA data shows their ground damage rate is around ten times higher than narrowbodies, and modern composite fuselages, increasingly common on aircraft like the 787 and A350, make even minor contact harder to inspect and more expensive to repair than the metal skins of older jets.
Passenger stairs are consistently flagged as one of the equipment types most frequently involved in ground damage incidents, and IATA’s Enhanced GSE Recognition Program, which promotes anti-collision technology across ground fleets, is now expanding its focus from stairs and belt loaders to include elevating equipment for passengers with reduced mobility, in other words, ambulifts.
The reasons aren’t hard to see.
Traditional stairs and ambulifts are driven or towed directly up to the aircraft door, often by a single operator working against a tight turnaround schedule, in low visibility, on a crowded apron. A misjudged approach, a mechanical fault, or a moment’s inattention is all it takes to make contact with a door surround or fuselage panel, and because that contact happens right at the boarding point, it’s frequently close to sensitive areas like doors, seals, and antennae.
Aviramp’s boarding ramps are engineered around the exact risk IATA’s data points to: contact between equipment and aircraft at the doorway.
Every Aviramp has the option to be fitted with aircraft detection sensors and an aircraft detection bumper bar, along with audible movement alarms and LED walkway lighting for better visibility during approach. If a ramp is driven toward the aircraft too quickly, power is automatically cut at a pre-set distance, stopping the approach before contact can occur. Proximity sensors and reverse warning alarms are available as further options, giving operators additional layers of protection during docking and repositioning.
The ramps themselves are built for controlled, low-speed docking rather than a fast final approach, with a soft-sided design intended to minimize the risk of contact damage around aircraft doors and fuselage areas. For aircraft with built-in doorway steps that would otherwise prevent a clean connection, Aviramp’s stair bridging accessory rests on top of the existing steps rather than fitting to them, so there’s no drilling, no fixing, and no damage to the aircraft floor.
Ground damage is largely a design and process problem, not a training problem alone. Equipment that physically cannot make contact with the aircraft, because it slows and stops before it gets there, removes the single largest point of risk in the boarding process. For US carriers and ground handlers weighing the true cost of a single incident against the cost of upgrading their boarding equipment, the math increasingly favors prevention.
Click here to see our ramps or get in touch to find out more.