The ramp, handled.

Each airport in our coverage carries a station file with primary and secondary handling agents, opening hours, slot policy, customs and immigration desks, AOE status, ramp width and apron limitations, and the local number for the night-stop ops desk. Dispatch reads the file at trip build, not at arrival. If the file is older than ninety days it is reverified before a slot is confirmed.

We separate FBO contracts from the station file deliberately. Operators with their own preferred handler can pin that vendor on the trip; operators who want LFS to pick the cheapest viable agent get a benchmarked recommendation. Either way the OCC sees both options on the dispatch sheet and can pivot mid-trip without resending a permit application.

T-48h we confirm the slot, send a service order to the handling agent, and request fuel uplift quantities from the operator. T-24h we send the GenDec, crew and passenger lists, and any catering or transport orders. T-6h we recheck NOTAMs and ATC flow restrictions and notify the handler of any ETA shift greater than fifteen minutes. T-1h the duty officer is on the ramp frequency with a wedge bay assigned and stairs positioned.

Every step is logged against the trip reference so a post-flight review can show exactly when each milestone closed. When something slips — and on a busy day at DXB or LHR something always slips — the OCC sees the deviation in the status feed before the operator has to ask.

For VVIP and head-of-state arrivals we add a layer the standard sheet does not show: protocol contact, motorcade staging, hard-stand vs. terminal A handling, weapons-on-board declarations, and the local sensitivities around press lines and photography. These movements are typically routed through Terminal A at AUH, the Royal Pavilion at OBBI, or the VIP terminal at OTHH and they need a named protocol officer on both ends.

Crew briefings include the dress code on the apron, the order in which the principal is greeted, and where the welcoming party will stand relative to the door. None of this is decorative — it determines how fast the principal can clear immigration and whether the formation photo gets taken before or after baggage offload.

Not every leg lands at a primary FBO. Trans-African ferry flights and tech stops in central Asia regularly route through fields where the handling agent is the airport authority itself. For these stations we maintain direct WhatsApp lines to ops officers, prepay fees where local banking is unreliable, and brief crews on water and lavatory service limitations before they leave the previous station.

We also pre-arrange fuel via a release valid against the local oil-marketing company rather than a global card scheme, because the card scheme will not be accepted at a non-IATA field. The dispatch sheet flags this so the captain is not surprised when the fueller asks for a paper release.

All LFS-operated stations apply IS-BAH ground handling standards. Partner stations are audited against an internal checklist that mirrors IS-BAH wherever the local regulator does not enforce it directly. Audit results sit in the station file so dispatch knows the last inspection date and any open findings before assigning the trip.

When an incident occurs — a wing-tip strike, a fueller error, a delayed catering load — the report is opened against the station, not the trip, so trends across operators and aircraft types become visible. This is how a handling network improves rather than just transacts.