To date, in the region of 230 organisations have decided to implement through to registration the business aviation industry codes of best practices, The International Standard for Business Aircraft Handling (IS-BAH). Of those, 111 have now achieved Stage II and three are at Stage III.

The International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) and its national and regional member associations have spent a great deal of time and resources developing industry standards, specifically aimed at the needs of the business aviation sector since the launch of the International Standard for Business Aviation Operations (IS-BAO) in 2002. IBAC is actively participating in the decision-making processes at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to ensure that the standards and recommended practices agreed by the ICAO member states consider, where needed, the business and general aviation sector before adoption by states into national requirements.

“It is an amazing achievement for what is currently a purely voluntary programme, for which there are no current mandated requirements for them to do so,” states Terry Yeomans, IS-BAH programme director. “Each and every one of those organisations should be applauded for their achievements in opting to follow the principles that took the Apollo astronauts to the moon and back all those years ago, to take a stand, to do all the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

“Those organisations would have asked themselves at some stage in their decision making, should I be doing this? Every day, we make choices between the difficult and the easy path. The easy path, of course, would have been a simple “no”, but when we choose the easy way, we are not challenging ourselves and may be missing important lessons-learned along the way,” Yeomans adds. “The IS-BAH is a set of standards and recommended practices developed by industry leaders using their current ground handling service expertise levels to drive the programme forward the right way and enhance ground handling safety globally. It makes no apologies for being challenging, and who knows, maybe the right way may end up being the easy way.

“For those of you who are at that point of asking, should I be doing this? The decision is entirely in your own hands, you must be up for the challenge. But, be wary of others who may be promoting simplified solutions. Just ask yourself, why would anyone want a simplified way of doing something you don't have to do?”