Ground handling SLA management with every service credit backed by the flights behind it
Penalties collected, not waived: every SLA line backed by the flights behind it.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Ground handling SLA management is how an airline holds each ground handler to the service levels in its station SLA — first bag and last bag, door open, handler-caused delays, mishandled bags, cleaning — and turns shortfalls into service credits. Ground Handling SLA Management gives the work to seven agents that measure every handler daily from the airline's own data, separate the misses the handler did not cause with their source, and draft the monthly penalty statement for the station manager to decide and sign.
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Ground handling SLA management is meant to hold each handler to the service levels written into its station's SLA beside SGHA Annex B: first bag and last bag on the belt after on-block, chocks-on to door open, handler-coded departure delays, mishandled bags, cabin cleaning audits, ground power. In practice the month's statement is built in a spreadsheet, weeks after month end, from the handler's own daily report — because the airline's own data sits in five systems.
Then the misses are argued. The SLA excuses thunderstorm ramp closures, FAA ground stops, airport-owned jet bridges and belts, and the airline's own instructions, but nobody can show which flight blocked in during which window. The airline changes a cabin standard without updating Annex B and then charges the handler for it. Without a flight list and a source, the station concedes, and most credits are waived for lack of evidence.
Estimated split for one station's monthly SLA statement, by spreadsheet and with the solution.
Seven specialist agents measure every handler daily, separate what the handler caused and draft the statement; the station manager decides and signs.
Corvane Airways hands 19 stations to four ground handlers. In October at Miami, Vantrell Ground Services put the first bag on the belt within 15 minutes on 88.4% of arrivals, against 95%. In 2025 a number like that ended in a weather dispute and a waiver. Here is what happens now, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Overnight the measurement agent closed October for 19 stations — 10,087 arrivals measured — and the agents drafted her Miami and Fort Lauderdale statements and checked every number twice. Her Today screen shows $18,500 drafted for Miami and 91.9% of credits collected since July. Each item has one action: review the Miami statement, decide where two agents disagree on Fort Lauderdale, review the answers to a handler dispute, open November, review the renewal proposals.
Activity: “Checker recomputed all 31 numbers on VGS-MIA-2610 from the raw scans — all match; Vantrell’s own count differs on 3 flights (same credit).”
The October statement to Vantrell opens as a letter on Corvane's letterhead, under SGHA 2023 Annex B (Miami) and SLA VGS-MIA-SLA-24, Schedules 2 and 3. One numbered paragraph per measure, every number underlined, the agents' open questions in the margin beside the paragraph they concern, and a running total: $18,500 plus $4,000 still open. The conversation with the agents sits beside the letter.
“I drafted Vantrell’s October statement for Miami: 7 lines, $18,500 in service credits, and one line ($4,000) waits for you.”
The measurement agent read 812 on-block times from the operations system, with none missing, and matched 87,140 belt scans: first bag within 15 minutes on 718 flights, 88.4%. The cause agent read the FAA advisories, the ramp lightning log and METAR for 31 days and excluded 41 misses on Oct 13–14 under Section 6.2(a). The contract agent applied Schedule 3 and the 10% cap, and the drafter wrote 7 paragraphs in the SLA's words.
The cause agent “will not decide a late notice — asks the station manager.”
The contract agent answers: 718 of 812 is 88.4%, 6.6 points short, capped at 4 points — $29,000. That is the kind of claim Vantrell disputed in 2025, when Corvane waived $261,900 as “evidence disputed — weather”. Just above, the checker has already predicted the dispute: Vantrell's own report excludes 44 flights, not 41, which puts line 1 at 93.5% on their count — and the credit is the same $14,500.
“With the storm flights shown, $14,500 is the number that holds.”
Asked why the 41 flights are out, the cause agent gives the windows: the ramp closed for lightning on Oct 13 from 13:20 to 16:41 and 18:00 to 19:35, and on Oct 14 from 12:40 to 15:58 and 17:05 to 20:10, with FAA ground stops inside them. Section 6.2(a) excludes flights on block during the event or within 60 minutes after the ramp reopens: 19 on Oct 13 and 22 on Oct 14. A citation opens FAA ATCSCC advisories 038 and 047 with the words highlighted.
“I excluded nothing outside the windows.” · 3 sources agree on every window.
Every underlined number opens the daily measurements behind it, from the same ground handling SLA monitoring the agents run every night: a 31-day strip of first bag against the 95% target, then the flights of any day. On Tue, Oct 13, 7 of 8 measured flights made it and 19 were excluded — CV 2603 from Lima blocked in at 13:36 and its first bag reached the belt at 14:20, 44 minutes, inside the storm window.
Twenty-two door-open misses met airport-owned jet bridge faults — D-17 on Oct 6–9 and D-21 on Oct 19–21, each proven by an airport maintenance ticket. But Vantrell reported the 9 at D-17 on Oct 12, after the 24-hour notice in Section 6.3. Excluding all 22 puts line 3 at 90.1%, met; only the 13 reported on time leaves 89.0% and a $4,000 credit. Camila excludes all 22 under A3, the event proven by another record, and agrees to keep 6 carousel 9 misses on Oct 22, where bags waited on carts for a crew.
The cause agent never excludes a flight without a source and never decides a late notice.
Cabin cleaning audits passed 91 of 100, 91.0% against 95%: a $4,000 credit. The contract agent notes in the margin that 7 of the 9 failures are the seat-pocket check added by Corvane's own Cabin Standard CS-26-04 on Oct 8, not yet in Annex B. Camila waives it under W2, Corvane changed the standard, within her $10,000 authority. The drafter rewrites paragraph 6 as a waiver and tells the renewal agent to add the standard to Annex B.
“Waive the $4,000 credit. Within your $10,000 authority. The reason goes into the statement and the audit trail.”
Every line decided, margin questions answered, 31 of 31 numbers matched, every exclusion with its source, $14,500 inside the $41,288 cap. Camila signs; Owen Whitlock, Manager of Ground Handling Contracts, releases. The statement goes through the handler portal to Marcus Bell with the flight list — 812 rows, every time with its source — and the exclusion evidence pack. Response due Wed, Nov 18, 2026.
“The agents cannot send. Sending needs both signatures.”
On Fort Lauderdale's September statement, Marcus Bell accepts lines 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 and disputes two. The response agent checks each: of the 9 weather flights on Sep 11, 6 blocked in inside the closure or the 60 minutes after, and 3 arrived after 17:25, so the line stays 1 point short at $3,000; airport ticket PBB-26-4210 confirms the C-7 bridge fault, so $2,200 comes off. The agreed amount would be $3,000 of $5,200 drafted — a person approves every answer.
The response agent never answers the handler itself.
The same October statement, seen by five of the people who carry it — what the month looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven specialist agents measure every handler daily, separate what the handler caused and draft the statement; the station manager decides and signs.
Every night, measures each SLA for each handler and station flight by flight from the airline's own systems — on-block times, belt scans, door events, ground power, delay codes, bag files and cabin audits — and raises an early warning when a measure is below target two days running.
Separates the misses the handler caused from thunderstorm ramp closures, FAA ground stops and ground delay programs, airport-owned equipment faults, the airline's own instructions and security holds, applying Section 6.2 and the recovery window.
Reads the SGHA, Annex B and the station's SLA clause by clause and applies the credit schedule exactly as written — the points, the rounding and the caps.
Writes the monthly statement to the handler in the SLA's words, every number underlined to the flights behind it, and redrafts a paragraph when the station manager decides a line.
Recomputes every number independently from the raw data, compares it with the handler's own daily report and predicts what the handler will dispute and whether it changes the money.
Reads each handler reply, maps every dispute to its flights and evidence, and proposes to accept or reject it with reasons.
Watches each handler across stations and months and drafts renewal targets, exclusions and credits from 12 months of results and the station managers' decisions.
Decide every line, sign every statement. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask in plain words, from any screen. The agents answer with sources and can act — open the right statement, redraft a paragraph or record a waiver.
Which statements need me this week?
Two of yours: VGS-MIA-2610 (Miami, $18,500, 3 questions in the margin) and VGS-FLL-2610 (Fort Lauderdale, the agents disagree on line 3). Both are due to Vantrell by Fri, Nov 13, 2026 under Section 8.1.
How is Vantrell doing across its stations?
First bag is below 95% at 3 of 7 Vantrell stations in October — Miami 93.1%, Orlando 94.0% and Boston 93.7%; Fort Lauderdale is back at 95.4%. Miami and Orlando slid from August, when Vantrell moved 46 Florida ramp agents to Atlanta.
What have we collected in SLA credits this year?
Since the July pilot, 91.9% of the credits the agents drafted were agreed and collected — $196,900 of $214,300. In 2025 Corvane collected 31% of what it claimed, mostly losing weather disputes.
Why is Miami first bag below target this week?
Nov 1 and 2: 92.3% and 92.6% against 95%. The 4 misses are in the 14:00–16:00 bank with two loaders short on Vantrell's roster; there was no ramp closure, ground stop or airport fault. Vantrell had said Florida rosters would be refilled by Oct 31.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The recovery window, the approval limits and the rules the agents can never break are settings, versioned and on the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Weather and ATC recovery window | 60 min | Step up or down 15 minutes, from 30 to 120 minutes |
| Station manager waiver authority | $10,000 | Step up or down $2,500, from $2,500 to $25,000 |
| Director approval for statements above | $25,000 | Total service credits in one statement |
| Early warning to the handler | On | On · Off — when a measure is below target two days running, the agents draft a note for the station manager to send |
| Two signatures before a statement goes | Locked | Station manager and contracts manager |
| Agents never send, waive or change a contract | Locked | They draft and propose; a person decides |
| Ask a person when a notice is late or the evidence is partial | Locked | The cause agent never decides these |
| Measure from the airline's systems | Locked | The handler's own report is read for comparison only |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (SITA Baggage IT Insights 2026, via CAPA — 24 million bags mishandled in 2025 at an estimated $6.3 billion; BTS on-time performance and delay causes, July 2026; IATA on the SGHA 2023 and the AHM 803 SLA). Corvane Airways, its handlers, stations' statements and the people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution; statement figures are illustrative.
Ground handling SLA management is how an airline holds each ground handler to the service levels in its station SLA — first bag and last bag, door open, handler-caused delays, mishandled bags, cleaning — and turns shortfalls into service credits. Ground Handling SLA Management gives the work to seven agents that measure every handler daily from the airline's own data, separate the misses the handler did not cause with their source, and draft the monthly penalty statement for the station manager to decide and sign.
The working solution measures seven ground handler KPIs for each station, starting with first and last bag delivery times: first bag on the belt within 15 minutes of on-block, last bag within 30 minutes for narrowbodies and 40 for widebodies, chocks-on to door open within 3 minutes at jet bridge gates, departures without a handler-coded delay, handler-caused mishandled bags per 1,000, transit cabin cleaning audits passed and ground power connected within 5 minutes. Each has one versioned definition — start event, stop event, population and rounding — for every station.
The contract agent applies the SLA's credit schedule exactly as written. In the Miami example, Schedule 3 counts each point or part of a point: 93.1% against 95% is 1.9 points, so 2 points at $7,250 — a $14,500 credit — checked against the cap of 10% of the month's handling charges.
The cause agent matches each miss to an event the SLA excuses — a ramp lightning closure, an FAA ground stop or ground delay program, an airport-owned jet bridge or belt fault with a ticket, an airline instruction — and applies the recovery window. It never excludes without a source, and when the handler's notice was late or the evidence is partial it asks the station manager instead of deciding.
The IATA Standard Ground Handling Agreement is the template contract; Annex A lists the services and Annex B sets the location, the agreed services and charges for each station. The service level agreement, under AHM 803, is negotiated alongside Annex B for a specific location and sets the service delivery standards. The agents read all three, clause by clause.
The handler accepts or disputes each line on the handler portal. The response agent maps every dispute to its flights and evidence and proposes to accept or reject it with reasons; the contracts manager approves, rejects or edits the answer, and agreed credits go to accounts payable as a credit note against the next invoice.
Yes. The agents never send, waive or change a contract. The station manager decides every line with a reason code, waivers above $10,000 and statements above $25,000 need the Director Airport Services, and nothing reaches the handler before two signatures — the station manager's and the contracts manager's.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your SGHA, Annex B and SLAs, your operations and baggage data, and a past month of handler reports — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. Setup ends with a test measurement on one past month, compared with the statement you signed.
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1-min demoWe'll run Ground Handling SLA Management on a past month of your own stations, contracts and handler reports.