Ground handling staff’s health and safety at Helsinki Airport

This master’s thesis is a study into the state of the occupational health and safety of ground handling work at Helsinki Airport. The study covers the following perspectives of the occupational health and safety: OHS management, physical ergonomics, cognitive ergonomics, organizational ergonomics and safety culture. In other words, the focus point is in the socio-technical and organizational characteristics of the GH operations. The current practices, processes and procedures are compared to the existing theory about the above-mentioned perspectives and the ISO 45001:2018 standard. The subject of this thesis has emerged not only as a result of the high level of the accident incidence rate in Finnish ground handling operations, but also as a consequence of the Finnish ground handling companies’ interest towards this kind of research. The thesis has been made as an assignment for the non-profit research foundation The August Ramsay Foundation. Taking into consideration the non-profit aspect of the Foundation the viewpoint of this thesis is that it is for the public good. The phrase “for the public good” means that the primary goal is to produce occupational health and safety information from the field of ground handling operations that can be used for the public good. The occupational health and safety information produced contains the most significant OHS hazards, risks and opportunities in Finnish ground handling operations. The three major findings, and therefore the most significant OHS risks in Finnish ground handling operations are the low identification of the early signs of a decline in the ground handling staff’s ability to work, low safety culture and inadequate safety improvements. There are other findings too, but the risk significance of the other OHS risks are from medium to low and therefore presented in the results. There are also numerous other identified OHS opportunities which are presented in the results. Keywords: Occupational health and safety, ground handling, risk management The originality of this thesis has been checked using the Turnitin Originality Check service