Swissport, one of the world's largest ground handlers, is moving its ground support equipment strategy beyond electrification toward data-driven fleet management, according to David Fernandez, the company's global head of fleet.

Fernandez laid out the shift in an interview recorded at GSE Expo Europe 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal, and published by the AviationPros Podcast. His central claim: electrification has already fundamentally changed the GSE industry, and the next evolution is now underway.

"Electrification has fundamentally changed the ground support equipment industry, but the next evolution is already underway," Fernandez said, framing the transition that Swissport's global fleet organization is now managing.

What is Swissport actually doing with fleet data?

The core of the new approach, according to Fernandez, is equipment utilization data. Swissport is using that data to refine preventive maintenance schedules across its GSE fleet.

The objectives he identified are threefold:

• Improve fleet efficiency;
• Support safer ground operations;
• Move maintenance from fixed intervals to usage-based scheduling.

For a handler operating at scale, the operational logic is straightforward. Ground support equipment — tugs, tractors, belt loaders, pushbacks — has traditionally been serviced on calendar-based schedules regardless of how intensively each unit works. Utilization data allows Swissport to identify which units are working hardest and service them accordingly, concentrating maintenance spend where it matters and reducing unnecessary downtime on lightly used assets.

How do AI, connectivity and automation fit in?

Beyond maintenance scheduling, Fernandez pointed to a broader technology stack taking hold across ramp operations: artificial intelligence, connected technologies and automation. He described these as playing a growing role in how ground handlers manage fleets and ramp workflows.

The connected-equipment element is the enabler. Telemetry from electrified and connected GSE gives operators like Swissport the raw utilization and health data on which AI-driven analytics and predictive maintenance models depend. Electrification, in other words, is not the end state — it is the platform on which the data layer is being built.

What does this mean for smaller ground handlers?

Fernandez also addressed the segment of the industry with the least capital to spend: smaller ground handlers. He offered advice on navigating the same technology and fleet-management shifts without the scale advantages of a global operator.

That question carries real weight for the sector. Swissport's fleet organization can amortize data infrastructure, telematics retrofits and fleet renewal programs across a worldwide station network. Independent and regional handlers face the same customer expectations on turnaround reliability and safety but must sequence those investments against much thinner margins. The gap between large integrators and small local players in fleet technology adoption is one of the structural consequences of the shift Fernandez describes.

Certified equipment versus promised capability

A note of analytical caution applies to the broader GSE technology narrative. Electric and connected GSE units are in service today at major stations, and utilization-data programs like Swissport's are operational rather than speculative. But AI and automation on the ramp remain, in most cases, piloted or partially deployed rather than standard practice across networks. The distinction between what is running on the ramp now and what vendors and handlers promise for the coming years will define which claims hold up.

What comes next

Fernandez's message positions Swissport's fleet strategy on a clear trajectory: electrification was the hardware transition, and data — utilization analytics, preventive maintenance optimization, AI and automation — is the operational one. How quickly that translates into measurable gains in fleet efficiency and ramp safety across the handler's global network will be the metric to watch.