A proven way to make the ramp safer
The ramp is where aircraft get damaged and people get hurt. Trained ramp peers watch normal turnarounds, with no jeopardy, to show where the safety margins are thin and what to change before something goes wrong.
All the benefits of a LOSA-style programme, run by your own people, at a fraction of the cost of a consultant-led one. Talk to us about your operation
NOMIC: the Normal Operations Monitoring International Collaborative. Built on the same principles as LOSA on the flight deck.
The ramp hasn't kept pace with the flight deck
The flight deck has had LOSA and Crew Resource Management for decades. The ramp hasn't had the same tools, and ground incidents haven't come down the same way.
when a safety management system becomes law for ground handlers in Europe
Regulation (EU) 2025/20Every threat caught is one less chance of damage or injury
In the reference data, ramp teams managed only about 1 in 8 of the threats they met. NOM shows which threats go unmanaged, where and why, so you can fix the conditions upstream and train crews to catch the rest. The next round shows whether it worked. The NOM model
Normal turnarounds show where incidents start
Near collisions with the aircraft followed speeding and towing too much equipment. And ramp crews rarely managed the threats they met: few ramp teams get the threat and error management training pilots and cabin crew have. Each finding points to something to change, and to the behaviours worth training: what to do, not only what not to do.
From the NOMIC reference data: sub-category odds ratios. More from the research
What NOM helps with
Your SMS
Hazards from normal work, not just incident reports, and a re-measure that shows whether changes worked. Not an SMS: it feeds yours. How it fits
Ground damage
See the conditions behind near misses and workarounds before an aircraft is hit.
New and changing teams
Agency staff and several companies on one turnaround: see where experience makes the difference.
New equipment
Anti-collision kit, digital loading instructions: measure whether work as done really changes.
On the ramp, then in the office
The observer records on their phone, talking as the turnaround happens. The programme team codes and checks the notes, and the results build up round by round.
Managed 07:16:42
Progress over time: went well
Threats seen most
What goes right, too
Incident reports show the rare bad day. Normal work shows the conditions that help and the good practice worth spreading.
Built on trust
Ramp people observe. Voluntary, de-identified, never used for discipline. Findings go back to the crews first.
Proven on the ramp
Developed by a team of psychologists and human factors specialists at a major airline, then as part of a PhD at UNSW Aviation. About NOMIC
Self-service, not a consultancy
Peer observation programmes have usually been run by outside consultants, which put them out of reach of most ground operations. NOMIC Ramp gives you everything to run it yourself, so you keep the benefits without most of the fee.
Your people run it
Your own ramp people observe, after a short online course. They know the work, and the crews trust them.
The tool does the heavy lifting
Recording on a phone, coding, checking, the report and the dashboard: no analysts to hire, no data to send away.
Help when you want it
Templates and guides for every step, and support from NOMIC if you'd like it. Run it again every year to see what changed.
The principles airlines already trust
- Trained peer observers watch normal operations, not checks or incidents
- Joint support from management and the workforce
- Voluntary, de-identified and non-jeopardy
- Threats and undesired states, and whether each was managed, mismanaged or unmanaged
- A checking group verifies every observation before it counts
- Findings go back to the frontline and set targets for change, then you measure again
The NOM model · The ten LOSA operating characteristics, on the ramp
Built for the turnaround, and for what goes right
- The ramp, not the flight deck: loading, unloading and pushback, watched from outside by someone who knows the work, with codes from ramp research
- What goes right as well: the conditions and good practice that keep turnarounds safe, alongside the threats (Safety-II)
- How the team managed it: what the loading team did, from a list built on ramp observations and accident reports
- Turnaround outcomes: on time, loaded correctly, damage or injury, linked to what was seen
- Run it yourself: your own ramp people observe and check, on a phone, even with no signal
LOSA (Line Operations Safety Audit) is defined in ICAO Doc 9803 and FAA Advisory Circular 120-90, and its operating characteristics in Klinect, Murray, Merritt and Helmreich (2003). Threat and Error Management: Helmreich, Klinect and Wilhelm (1999). NOM is not LOSA, and NOMIC is independent of ICAO, the FAA and The LOSA Collaborative. See LOSA for ground operations.
The Normal Operations Monitoring International Collaborative
NOMIC brings together the airlines, ground handlers and airports that run NOM on their ramps. Each keeps its own observations; together they build a picture no one organisation could see alone.
One method
The same codes, observer course, templates and phone app for every member, so results mean the same thing everywhere.
See where you sit
Members can pool de-identified results. Each sees its own dashboard against the range across organisations, never another organisation's figures.
A head start
Reference data from 1,302 observed turnarounds, so you have something to compare with from your first round.
Compare with the NOMIC reference data
See straight away whether a condition turns up more or less often than in the 1,302 reference turnarounds: overall, or by port type, aircraft size or stand.
For anyone who wants the ramp to work better
Safety managers, ground operations leaders and ramp supervisors, in ground handlers, airlines and airports of any size. All you need is a few people who know the ramp, a little training, and a will to learn together.