Why your airline should outsource deicing expertise

Aircraft ground deicing is a highly niche and highly regulated part of air carrier operations, requiring expertise, time-proven programs, and strong oversight to achieve performance, compliance, and safety of operations.

All airlines, big or small, are responsible for developing and maintaining ground deicing programs and training programs that are subject to regulatory oversight and approval. In addition, airlines are required to develop and implement quality assurance programs to ensure that established and approved deicing processes and procedures are effectively utilized by employees and contracted service providers at each airport.

Most large airlines with high exposure to winter operations have devoted personnel to manage ground deicing, but this is not the case with many smaller airlines. While these smaller operators are bound by the same regulatory requirements as larger carriers, it’s improbable that smaller airlines will employ top-line expertise to fulfill only the deicing portfolio and often will achieve deicing functional needs with less-experienced and less-costly personnel options. Or they will simply pile deicing responsibilities onto the shoulders of already overburdened personnel.

The situation ultimately results in a minimum compliance mindset for many smaller carriers, who often do the bare minimum to get by with relatively poor or ineffective programs and training and quality assurance and reactively plug holes in their operation on a per-need basis, sometimes with their hair on fire because of the nature of the identified issue or deficiency and time sensitivities needed for the fix.

The reality of this approach is that companies are at the mercy of their meagre performance and are not agile enough to implement change on the fly. Without the focused investment in time, resources, and structure, deicing results will never be optimal and will only end up causing grief and heartache and costing more time and money in the end.

So how can smaller airlines achieve more predictable deicing performance? It’s relatively simple in my opinion. Airlines need to go back in time and invest and bulk up internally, or adopt smart, modern, external solutions.

In 2024, it is entirely feasible for an airline to get out of deicing altogether and to outsource many or all aspects of operations, management, programs, and oversight to a focused third party. With the advent and expansion of harmonized deicing programs and training and quality assurance programs, a proactive deicing strategy can be developed and implemented for pretty much any carrier and any budget.

Here are some of the expert deicing services and solutions that SureConsult provides its growing number of airline customers:

• Off-the-shelf harmonized deicing programs (SureOps)
• Fully configurable deicing programs (SureOps Plus and SureOps Lite)
• Training programs for operations personnel (flight crews, cabin crews, operations management, deicing personnel, etc.)
• Train-the-trainer services
• Online training and learning management systems
• Review of regulated ground icing programs
• Deicing contractor program reviews
• Development of training difference packages
• Deicing-related SOP and manual development
• Station start-up support and pre-season audits
• Deicing incident reviews
• Risk assessments
• Shared and stand-alone deicing audit services (SureAudit)
• Audit reports, corrective action plans, audit closure letters

Curious to know how SureConsult can help your airline? Please do not hesitate to contact us.