As one of the fastest-growing ground handling providers in the DACH region, AAS Group is taking a significant step to optimize its contract and billing operations by adopting the cloud-based Ground Handling System (GHS) from Ehrhardt Partner Group (EPG). This strategic move comes as AAS seeks to streamline its expanding business and address the complexities brought on by rapid growth.
The GHS solution has already been successfully deployed at AAS’s Düsseldorf site, with plans to roll it out further across key locations including Berlin, Vienna, Frankfurt, and Hamburg. For AAS, this implementation is more than just a system upgrade—it’s a catalyst for digitizing and automating the billing of all ground handling services. By doing so, the company aims to enhance transparency, boost operational efficiency, and lay the groundwork for a unified, scalable system landscape that can support its growth across Europe.
AAS’s decision to adopt GHS stems from the challenges posed by its dynamic expansion in recent years. The company has quickly risen to become a leading ground service provider in the German-speaking market, thanks in part to strategic acquisitions such as Acciona in Düsseldorf, AHS, and aerogate—moves that significantly expanded its service portfolio and market reach. However, this rapid growth also increased the complexity of its system landscape. Heterogeneous software solutions, partially manual billing processes, and site-specific requirements made unified management a daunting task, creating a need for a centralized, integrated system.
Florian Matthei, COO of AAS, explains the motivation behind the shift: “We were faced with the challenge of creating a central solution for our growing group of companies. With GHS, we consolidate all relevant processes in a single system—from mobile service capture at the aircraft to back-office billing. This creates a consistent data basis, reduces sources of error, and accelerates processes significantly.”
A key priority for AAS during the implementation was seamless integration with its existing systems. To achieve this, GHS leverages the dispatch system of long-term partner INFORM, which provides real-time flight data. Additionally, on-site tasks are transmitted from the dispatch system and automatically reconciled with the contract conditions stored in GHS. This tight integration eliminates manual steps, directly linking service delivery to billing and enabling a high degree of process automation.
At the heart of GHS’s value for AAS is its ability to drive maximum automation in billing. Services that were once documented on paper or across inconsistent systems are now captured digitally and billed automatically. A critical component of this is Mobile Service Registration (MSR): apron employees use mobile devices to record services directly at the aircraft. This not only saves time and reduces transmission errors but also ensures no service goes unaccounted for—whether it’s standard handling services or last-minute ad hoc requests. All provided services are automatically matched against the contractual data stored in GHS, with results flowing seamlessly into AAS’s accounting system and a connected business intelligence (BI) tool that delivers real-time reports and analytics.
The impact of GHS is substantial, as Matthei highlights: “Thanks to the high degree of automation, GHS significantly closes the revenue gap and provides a level of billing security that would be impossible to achieve manually. The error rate in invoicing drops dramatically, and transparency for our customers increases noticeably.”
Another key benefit is enhanced traceability: every service is tied to a flight number, timestamp, and responsible employee. This means AAS can always clearly demonstrate when, where, and by whom a service was performed—building trust with customers and greatly speeding up the resolution of any discrepancies.
For EPG, the partnership with AAS is a strategically important milestone: it marks the first time the Aviation Execution Suite (AES), which includes GHS, will be introduced in Austria. For AAS, the collaboration goes beyond operational improvements—it also ensures the company meets the high quality and transparency standards demanded by its international airline customers, solidifying its position as a leading ground handling provider in the region.